


a waltz for a night

by Riki, thehobbem



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Before Sunrise AU, Before Sunset AU, Dancer Katsuki Yuuri, Fanart, Fluff, M/M, Minor Angst, Romance, Temporary Separation, Writer Victor Nikiforov, and I'm very sorry but vicchan dies off-screen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2019-12-18 09:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18247175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riki/pseuds/Riki, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehobbem/pseuds/thehobbem
Summary: Victor Nikiforov is coming back from an extended trip to London, where he spent a month doing research for his next novel; Katsuki Yuuri is going to Belgium, where he’s finally gotten his dream job at a famous dance company. They meet at Gare du Nord, when one waits and the other is about to leave.Throughout a day and night and all over Paris, they share pieces of themselves, whispered confessions and stolen kisses. But as morning dawns again, they must make a difficult choice.





	1. let me sing you a waltz (out of nowhere, out of my thoughts)

**6:40am**

A couple pointedly lets go of each other’s hands and walks around him. A family with three children almost takes him along in their current as they pass; a woman bumps into him and mutters an aggressive _excusez-moi_ — and Victor still doesn’t move.

People come and go, and he should be doing one of those instead of standing in the way, staring at the ever-changing train schedule of Gare du Nord. But coming or going implies having a place to reach, and if asked about either, Victor would be at a loss for an answer.

Yakov might argue Victor has to go back home and finish his next novel, but that’s neither necessarily true nor urgent. Nothing’s truly urgent, and that includes the illusion of home, which is why he ended up staying in England for a month instead of just the couple of weeks planned; “research for the novel,” he’s told Yakov, and the only reason he’s going home now instead of in another six months is Makkachin. With his personal Penelope waiting for him, he might as well make for his Ithaca.

When the umpteenth person bumps into him, he moves away from the illuminated train schedule. He knows very well the Paris-Moscow Express doesn’t leave from Gare du Nord — and yet here he is, trying to buy himself time examining a train schedule with no trains to Russia.

His phone vibrates and wakes him from his reverie: on his lock screen, an e-mail from Yakov glares at him. He shoves the phone back in his pocket and away from his thoughts. It’s too early for this.

It’s time for breakfast, he decides. Who knows how long a good breakfast may take? It might take long enough for him to think of somewhere else plausible to go.

***

It’s too early for this, Yuuri thinks. Too early to be awake, for starters, and definitely too early to be at a train station this crowded at such an ungodly hour. It’s not even 7am, for Christ’s sake.

Jet-lag has made a hostage of him, and it’s only by a miracle that he’s able to stand — but comprehending the train schedule in his hands is beyond even a higher power. All names and hours blur into each other, all trains seem to go everywhere all the time, it’s ridiculous. Europe has too many trains.

He shouldn’t even be in Europe. He should be in Detroit, back in his tiny apartment with Phichit, eating junk food despite his diet, and binge-watching bland Hallmark rom-coms, and not… doing this. Whatever this is.

 _“_ _Your opportunity_ _!”_ Phichit called it. But that makes no sense. There’s no reasonable explanation as to why the National Belgian Ballet would invite him, of all people, except that the company has made a mistake. They’re bound to realize it sooner or later, and then—

He bumps into someone — the only person who doesn’t seem to be going somewhere in this hell of a station. Yuuri mutters an apology as he hurries away, and… he should’ve apologized in French, shouldn’t he? Great, now he’s one of those American tourists who make a point of not using the local language. What a start to his life in Europe.

He needs all the practice in French he can get, he’s only barely functional in it. He needs to get better, he needs— he stops in front of a sign: **L’Argent Du Nord** **Café**.  _Food_. He needs food. It’s early morning, Detroit-Paris was a long flight with a crappy meal, and if he can’t get the sleep he wants, then by gods he’s going to treat himself to some breakfast while he reads his book.

***

The café may not be the best that Paris has to offer food-wise, and Victor’s certainly been to more comfortable places. It’s more like a McDonald’s than genuine French cuisine, and the  _croque_ _monsieur_ in front of him looks despondent, as if it, too, knows the sheer indifference that went into its preparation. The coffee is water, and there’s nothing else to say about that.

All that, however, pales when compared to the one advantage this café has given him. If he’s going to avoid going home by eating shitty food at a crowded train station, he can at least enjoy the view: the most adorable man he’s ever seen, sitting at the table right in front of him. With a mop of rebellious black hair and the cutest of noses, wearing an enormous (slightly frumpy) beige windbreaker, he mechanically readjusts the glasses that insist in slipping down his nose as he inspects the menu. He does it with a concentration so fierce Victor almost doesn’t want to break it by walking up to him with an opening line.

 _Opening line_. What for?

It’s not like he’s looking for someone, much less with someone probably going to another end of Europe altogether. Ships in the night, and all that. Still, this particular ship looks… he keeps pushing his hair back, revealing soft features and a jawline Victor would love to cut himself on. When the man pouts in annoyance at the menu, Victor knows he’d nip at those lips if given half a chance.

Okay, fine, the man’s _beautiful_. Victor should go talk to him and see his eyes from up close, hear what he sounds like, check whether his smile is as lovely as he imagines it to be; but what would he even say? Maybe something about the book Gorgeous Man has in front of him. Literature is, after all, 100% in Victor’s wheelhouse; one might even say it’s the only thing he knows. But he can’t decipher the title from here.

He should be able to think of something charming to say, or witty, or both, if the couple next to them weren’t so _insufferably loud_ _._ Victor’s German is not the same it used to be, but it’s still enough to understand the gist of their conversation. Pointing at an article on a newspaper, the man mumbles something about 1 in every 600 women being alcoholics, throwing a “you’re one of them” at the end.

“You’re the alcoholic, you and your damn friends,” says the woman, so viciously Victor worries she’s going to choke on her own venom.

The man scoffs. “I have a reason, I’m married to you!”

That sparks a shouting match in the middle of the café; soon a crinkle shows up in Gorgeous Man’s brow, and he throws the couple one annoyed glance after the other, his concentration irredeemably broken.

 _This is my chance._ This is the moment when he gets up, walks up to Gorgeous Man and says— _wait,_ _he’s leaving?!_

***

The universe hates him. _Hates him_ _._ After a long-ass flight made of pure anxiety and insomnia, Yuuri deserves some goddamn peace and quiet washed down with actual food, instead of whatever it is that Delta thinks it’s okay to serve on their flights. But no, what he gets is jet-lag bitch slapping him so hard he can’t even focus on a menu, plus a couple screaming at each other in public. He takes one last look at them as he exits the café — who even thinks this is acceptable behavior to your partner, and in public, no less? Jesus.

He should just get on the first train to Brussels, go straight to the dorm reserved for him and sleep the whole extra day he has. That would be far kinder on himself. There’s a train to Brussels-South every hour from here, if he can get on the next one, he can still make it in time for—

“They bothered you too, huh?”

Yuuri jumps, the voice so close to his ear it makes his heart try to escape through his throat. He turns around to find a pair of blue eyes on the face of a modern day Adonis, framed by impossibly silky, silver hair, all belonging to what is clearly The Most Beautiful Man In The World, who’s currently talking to him. Oh _God_ , what did he say again?!

“Um, sorry?”

“The couple,” The Most Beautiful Man In The World answers, nodding towards the couple’s-fight-turned-public-spectacle. “Makes it impossible to be alone with your thoughts, doesn’t it?” he says, a faint smile playing on his lips. It doesn’t make him any more similar to a mere mortal, to be honest, it just accentuates the whole _“I dine on nectar and ambrosia at the table of the gods”_ thing he’s got going on.

Still, a smile is always an offer, and Yuuri replies with one of his own. “Pretty much. Did you understand what they’re fighting about?”

Most Beautiful Man In The World shrugs. “A little. They were just…  treating each other like crap; guess they call _that_ ‘marriage’, but doing it in public is just…” he waves impatiently, dismissing the mere idea of it, and gives him another small, almost timid, smile. “There’s a café across the street with some decent food. We could… try our luck there? You know, have some real breakfast, see how many screaming couples they got…” he finishes with a wink, and Yuuri can feel a blush take over — courtesy of that treacherous part of himself that offers on a platter everything he would rather keep hidden.

Yuuri looks down at his phone and checks the time in what he hopes is a nonchalant manner. If he pretends to have a schedule to stick to, he won’t look _too_ prompt in accepting the invitation. “Okay, but only if you promise there’s gonna be more couples yelling at each other there. It’s a breakfast staple, can’t do without it.”

The man’s face brightens up, because the world is that intent in torturing Yuuri with how unattainably gorgeous the man is. “I’ll do my best!”

 

* * *

**7:20am**

Gorgeous Man — Yuuri — takes a careful sip of his cappuccino, and his eyes light up in approval. The café around them is as busy as the one they just left, but with none of the bustling from inside the station. It also feels like a genuine café with its round tables, comfortable vime chairs and buttery croissants that melt in their mouths.

Victor pats himself on the back: getting out of that subpar fast food café with Yuuri was the best idea he could’ve had. Now he gets to spend an hour or two with him, watching the way those gorgeous eyes sparkle like honey in the sunlight, and that shy smile that hints at something much brighter when ignited.

“I’m disappointed,” says Yuuri, and Victor snaps back into reality.

“Excuse me?”

“I said I’m disappointed. You promised me more screaming couples, but so far I see none,” Yuuri explains, taking another sip of his drink and taking a vague look around the café, silent but for the faint clink of silverware against china cups and the light murmur of conversation here and there.

Victor feels his own lips twitch in a smile. “Give it a chance, the morning is still young.” He holds back a laugh when Yuuri mumbles into his cup what sounds like “empty promises”, the humor in his eyes sparkling along with the honey.

 

* * *

**9:37am**

“It was… something,” Yuuri says, his brow furrowing as he visibly tries to recall how he felt back in those first days. “Everything was too big, too crowded, and… well, ugly,” he says, crinkling his nose in a way it makes Victor’s heart tingle. “Or I thought so, back then. I love Detroit now, but it’s very different from Hasetsu. And, I don’t know, English everywhere, I just… I missed home,” he finishes with a sigh, following it up with a wry smile. “Guess now I’m about to miss Detroit.”

What a weird thing to hear on the same morning Victor is avoiding “home” at all costs. He leans back in his chair, the confession tempting at the tip of this tongue. He lets himself skid close to it.

“Funny, I’ve never had the chance to feel homesick. Never lived anywhere else,” Victor says, feeling the little truths that lie behind his words — his thousand opportunities to feel homesick every time he travels on a book tour, for instance, trips that take up months at a time more often than not. The truth of his childhood love for Saint Petersburg turning into numb indifference, and the complete absence of any other place to go.

It’s too early for so many truths.

“Any place you’d like to settle in, if you had to leave Saint Petersburg?” asks Yuuri, because of course he does. The precision with which he hits it is almost clinical.

Victor feels a slow smile spread, and he pairs it up with a wink. “Brussels sounds great, actually.” For whatever it’s worth, that at least is not a lie. What would it be like to live in the same city as Yuuri? To be able to exchange a couple of texts and arrange a date whenever they felt like it?

His undeserved reward for one small truth comes in the form of another gorgeous blush.

 

* * *

**10am**

Yuuri leans forward on the table, eyes sparkling with new life. “ _Please_ tell me you have pictures.”

Victor scoffs. “Yuuri, I’m offended. I have an entire album! Here,” he gets his phone out of his pocket, and after a few touches, turns it to Yuuri so he can see an album called ‘Makkachin’.

This, right here, is where it all hangs. So far, Yuuri is the embodiment of what Victor would get on BuzzFeed if he took a “Take This Quiz And We’ll Tell You Who Your Ideal Man Is” test. Victor would select a secluded house in the mountains for a vacation for two, beer as his favorite drink, pink for favorite color, oily skin as his biggest fear, whipped cream as the best food to take into the bedroom with your partner, and in the end, he’d see **You Got: Yuuri.**

It’s not just how ridiculously beautiful he is — and he is. He _is_ _._ He’s so beautiful Victor wants to cry. There’s the music in his laughter too, and how he’s already charmed Victor practically out of his pants with just one smile. How he listens with attentive eyes, and the blush that comes unabashedly when Victor flirts. Victor could watch it all day, if given the chance, preferably from really up close.

He tries not to think too hard on the fact Yuuri’s a dancer. The implications that come with it are better examined within four walls rather than in public.

Now, as Victor offers him his phone to look at Makkachin’s pictures, the million-dollar question is: how much does Yuuri like dogs? He’s listened to each Makka story with keen attention, yes, but is it real or just polite interest? Which answer terrifies him the least?

Yuuri takes the phone out of his hands almost reverently, cooing upon seeing Makkachin.

“Oh my god,” he whispers with an awe most people reserve only to church and the mystery of faith, “she’s _gorgeous_. All this time and you didn’t tell me? The betray— oh dear _god_ , she’s perfect! Oh nooo, look at her in the water, _Victor_.”

There’s no shortage of cooing, gasping and nonsensical exclamations, Yuuri is more than generous in that field. Not that it’s anything more than what Makka deserves, but still. He pours over every detail of every picture with so much love the photos could’ve been mistaken for those of his own children.

He pauses. “Wait. _Wait_. Victor, she’s huge!”

Victor takes a look at the picture in question: it’s an old one of Victor carrying Makka in his arms on the beach. He would’ve hoped Yuuri would be more taken by the vision of a shirtless Victor, but then, it’s just that hard to compete with Makkachin. He smiles. “Yeah, she’s a standard. She weighs 26 kg.”

Yuuri’s eyes go wide, and he goes back to looking through the album with a new perspective. “I thought she was like Vicchan,” he mumbles.

That makes the alarm in Victor’s head go off. “Vicchan? Yuuri. _Yuuri_ _._ Have you been hiding a dog from me? Please tell me Vicchan is some child you know, and not a dog.”

Yuuri at least has the grace to be embarrassed. “Uhh... he’s my toy poodle. Sorry?” He crinkles his nose again, and just like that, Victor is ready to forgive him anything. After all, Yuuri’s also got a poodle; he is that perfect, and there’s not much to do about it except surrender.

“Show me pictures of Vicchan, and then we’ll talk forgiveness.”

Yuuri is only too ready to comply.

 

* * *

**11:24am**

“A soloist at the National Belgian Ballet? Yuuri, this is amazing! Congratulations!”

“Ah, thanks… I mean, who knows, it’s probably a mistake anyway,” Yuuri says with a tiny dismissive laugh.

It doesn’t work.

Victor‘s face is more serious than it’s been all morning and his eyes, until now so easy to drown in, seem to see right through Yuuri; it’s almost like being naked. He wouldn’t mind being naked with Victor, far from it, but he’d much rather have it happen literally, not metaphorically.

“A mistake? Is that so?” Victor asks, more like a statement than a question, while still managing to convey the exact amount of incredulity intended.

“Um… maybe,” Yuuri replies, eyes flitting away for a moment. He’s not going to insist on his own lack of merit or talent out loud, at least not to the most attractive man he’s ever met. But that doesn’t mean he’s ready to abandon his most fundamental disbeliefs.

“Hmm. And how often do you think internationally famous dance companies make mistakes like that? Hiring a dancer by mistake?” he cocks his head as he asks, his bangs falling to the side, and Yuuri’s eyes can’t help following the movement. Victor’s hair is something that exists beyond the realm of possibility, and Yuuri grips his own hands a bit harder under the table.

“Well, I— it’s not impossible… of course, it’s not _probable_ , but—”

“I’m just asking because I do know the National Belgian Ballet is one of the most prestigious ballet companies in the world,” Victor continues cheerfully, “and I was told it’s super hard to get in? So you know. Just wondering.”

That smile is disconcerting, to say the least. Too pretty in its endearing heart shape, too brutal in the point it drives home. Yuuri has no answer to it.

 

* * *

**11:59am**

“I visit when I can, but Yura’s schedule is... almost spartan.”

“Well, it _is_ the Bolshoi,” Yuuri replies. He’s never had the courage to apply to the Bolshoi, but perhaps he should. If Victor’s 15-year-old cousin made it...

“Yeah, and it doesn’t help that our godmother—”

Somewhere in the distance a church bell tolls twelve times, and Victor drops what he’s about to say, eyes widening. They turn their heads in the direction where the sound comes from, and turn to each other again.

“It’s _midday_ _?”_ Yuuri asks. That’s not possible, they’ve only been here for, what, a couple of hours? Where did time go?

“Uhh, yeah, apparently,” Victor says, looking at his phone. “We’ve been here for five hours?!”

“Yeah.” Now that Yuuri thinks about it, his jet-lag has disappeared along with his desperation for sleep. At some point those were replaced with wanting to stay with Victor for a few more minutes. Minutes became hours, and now here they are.

But Victor has to go back to Russia, and Yuuri has a ballet company to present himself to in two days, all the way in Brussels.

“Well, I guess I… should go. Still got a train to catch. But um, this was great,” Yuuri says, his smile coming more crooked than he intends it. Damn his face’s insistence in betraying him.

“Yeah. Yeah, it was,” Victor says slowly. He looks at Yuuri, seemingly searching for something on his face. Yuuri looks back, not knowing what else to do, and starts when Victor suddenly leans forward, “Or you could stay.”

“Stay?!” Yuuri echoes, and it’s impossible to hide the hint of laughter in his voice. The hope that Victor would ask him for something else — his number, his Instagram, e-mail, LINE, anything — was already fantastical to begin with, but to ask him to stay? “Stay where? Aren’t you going back to Saint Petersburg?”

“I know, I just…” Victor runs a hand through his hair, eyes wandering around the café before he looks at Yuuri again, and blurts out, “I don’t know what your situation is? If you have someone already, or… but this morning… this doesn’t— Yuuri, _five_ _hours_. I have no idea when was the last time I felt like talking to someone for an entire hour, let alone five.” He waves a hand between them, his eyes trained on Yuuri’s, and Yuuri can’t look away. “There’s something here. Am I wrong?” Victor asks, his voice with the slightest hint of doubt.

Yuuri shakes his head. “No. You’re— yeah, I think so too.” He’s felt the pull all morning, the lure in their easy conversation, the electricity every time their hands brushed over the table, everything that he’s been too afraid to call instant chemistry.

Victor smiles — just a little, but it’s the kind that Yuuri likes: small and full of warmth that reaches his eyes, unlike the flawless one Victor gives sometimes. Those are reserved for when he evades a question, or cuts a topic short with a flirty line. If only Victor were as smooth as he thinks he is.

“So, I um… I haven’t been to Paris in a while, and since I don’t have to go back home right away…” Victor says with a timid shrug, “I have time to spare, so I was thinking of spending the day here. And I’d hate myself if I didn’t ask you to stay a little longer.”

Yuuri takes a deep breath, and another long look at those eyes that are halfway to pleading. He can answer with the truth: that the wise thing for him to do would be to go to Brussels as soon as possible, find his dorm and spend his last free day getting organized for his new life in a country he doesn’t know. Get a good day’s rest before everything changes forever.

Except there’s that heart smiling at him, right here and right now.

“Let me find a locker for my bag, and I’ll be ready to go.”

 

* * *

**12:22pm**

“It’s a beautiful day.”

“Yeah. Not too hot, not too cold.”

“Hmm.”

Silence.

 _It’s a breathtaking, reverberating, and above all, frighteningly clever book. With_ **Living Legend** , _Nikiforov shows once again why he’s the undefeated champion of contemporary literature. Words are his realm, and we’re all just visiting._

Victor still remembers that review, how it lavished him with praise for his way with words. And yet, the best he’s been able to come up with for the past 5 minutes was “it’s a beautiful day”. _Words are his realm_ , yeah, and they’ve dethroned and beheaded him without warning. Words are their own Commonwealth now, and Victor’s not welcome.

He glances at Yuuri out of the corner of his eye. His way with words lost itself somewhere between “only if you promise there’s gonna be more couples yelling at each other there” and “I’ll be ready to go”, buried deep in those eyes of early morning.

They walk side by side for another minute, neither saying a word, and Yuuri’s face unreadable as he looks at the buildings, the passerby and the cloudless, open sky. He must be wondering whether he shouldn’t simply have gotten on the train after all. Wondering how to get out of this, how to politely say that this was a mistake. Victor braces himself for the inevitable; when Yuuri bows out, Victor will gracefully accept, no harm no—

Yuuri stops so abruptly Victor still takes a couple of steps forward before noticing it. He turns around, surprised at the sound of Yuuri snorting.

“Yeah, this is awkward,” Yuuri says. And with that, Victor hears the spell shatter.

“Yeah, we’re not doing this right, are we? Sorry,” he says, laughing in spite of himself, and goes back to Yuuri’s side. Relief gives way to another truth. “This is great, we just have to know how to make the best of it. Since this is your first time here, is there anything you want to do, anywhere you’d like to go?”

Yuuri thinks for a few seconds, while Victor wonders what in Paris would attract him the most. Those five hours were absolutely not enough, Victor needs much longer than that if he’s to unravel Yuuri in his entirety.

“Well,” Yuuri says slowly, “I’d like to see the landmarks, the museums and all, but…” he frowns, and he’s so easy to read Victor can almost hear him picking just the right words to say whatever is coming next, “it’s… not really the point, is it? Of me staying. Like, that would defeat the purpose.”

When Victor says nothing, choosing to only stare back, Yuuri talks faster, a light pink blush putting in an appearance. “If we were busy with, like, tourist attractions, we wouldn’t be… I mean, we would _talk_ , of course, how could we not, but we wouldn’t be, I don’t know, really talking. You know?” he finishes weakly, and Victor can’t contain his smile anymore. That clinical precision. Who even gave him free access to his most private thoughts?

“I do,” Victor hurries to assure him; he didn’t ask Yuuri to stay just so he could watch him take the dive on his own. “And I agree. I can’t dazzle you with my charms if you’re too busy gawking at a monument or a garden, now can I?”

Yuuri raises an eyebrow. “Is that your plan for the day?”

“Sounds vague, I know, but… yeah, it is!” he replies, giving him the best smile he can. If he’s going to dazzle Yuuri, he should get started — half the day has gone by already.

“Hmm. Funny, that’s my plan for the day too. What a coincidence,” he says, walking ahead without looking back at Victor at all. Which is for the best, because Victor’s not sure he has full control of his face right now. It’s too early to be this much of an open book, but… damn. Yuuri really is just letting himself in and mercilessly swinging those hips while at it.

He clears his throat as he hurries to keep up with him in more ways than one. “Quite the coincidence. So tell me, Yuuri,” he continues, in an effort to steer the conversation into a direction he can control, assuming control is what he wants out of this, “how do you feel about a Q&A session?”

“Um… sure? But what would you even ask that you don’t know already?” he asks, his brow knitting in confusion.

Victor gasps. “Yuuuuuri! There’s lots to ask! Sure, I know where you’re going, where you come from, what you do for a living, etc — but I don’t know the most fundamental things about you!”

“Such as?”

“Such aaaas… your favorite color?”

“Blue,” Yuuri answers in a flash, “yours?”

Victor laughs. “Pink, but it’s not a lightning round! I like the enthusiasm, though,” he laughs again, while Yuuri giggles a soft _“sorry, got carried away”_. “Are we doing this in turns, then?”

“It’s only fair, don’t you think?”

“Huh. Debatable, but I aim to please. So it’s my turn again. Hmm… do you have anyone special in your life?”

“I— um,” Yuuri clears his throat, “I don’t, actually.”

“Tell me about one of your exes, then,” Victor insists, turning around and walking backwards to face Yuuri. He doesn’t know why he’s insisting on that point. Maybe out of a desire to see where Yuuri’s limits lie, or maybe to see what Yuuri is looking for — or has looked for, found and lost.

“Um, I don’t…” Yuuri waves a vague hand, as if he could make the question go away like he would an inconvenient fly. “You know, I’d rat— wait. Isn’t it _my_ turn now? Why do you get two questions in a row?!”

Busted. “Sorry,” he says with a wink.

Yuuri tuts at him. “You know, there are rules to this! You tell me, then, about… um, an impossible crush you’ve had.”

“Easy. Stéphane Lambiel,” Victor answers without missing a beat. Next thing he knows Yuuri is grabbing his arm with what comes this close to being way too much strength.

“You like Stéphane too?!”

It’s Victor’s turn to stop in his tracks in the middle of the street. “Wait. You like figure skating?”

“I love it! Never miss a competition if I can help it!” Yuuri rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “I… may or may not still have a few posters of Stéphane up on the walls in my bedroom, back in Hasetsu,” he confesses with an amused smile.

Victor shakes his head with a chuckle. “I have one in my home office, but a few? You’re a much better man than I am, Yuuri.”

“You mean more obsessed,” Yuuri says, rolling his eyes. “In my defense, it’s my childhood bedroom, I haven’t been there in five years.”

“Is there anything you hate?”

Yuuri starts. “Anything— what?”

“Anything you hate? I mean,” Victor hastens to add, “ _really_ hate, something that gets your blood boiling, and not just… pineapple on pizza or anything like that. Something personal.”

“When people tell me to calm down,” he says, so promptly it takes Victor a second or two to process it.

“You mean… when you’re angry?”

“When I’m… anxious,” he says, his jaw tightening and his eyes stuck to his own shoes as they walk. “ _‘Yuuri, you’ll calm down if you just relax’_ , like, no, Susan, if I could calm down, I would have already. That’s not… that’s not how anxiety works,” he says, voice going down in the last words.

Victor shakes his head. “No, that’s not how it works,” he echoes quietly.

“Yeah. Well. Um, my turn? You know, I should’ve gotten two questions in a row, too, to make up for your cheating.” Victor gasps, horrified, and whines a long _“_ _Yuuuuuri_ _!”_ , but Yuuri ignores him. “Have you ever been in love?”

Victor swallows a sigh. Of all the questions. Is he so hollow to the point of being that transparent? And he thought Yuuri was the one easy to read.

“That’s… an interesting question,” he says. “Because, when you think about it, isn’t ‘love’ a concept inherently hard to pin down? We, um… we, as a society, have spent, what, millennia?, trying to understand and define it, and it just… keeps slipping right through our fingers. The ancient Greeks, for example, divided love into five distinct categories.”

“You don’t say,” Yuuri replies, cocking his head a bit too innocently; the corners of his mouth twitch perceptibly, which speaks volumes of the efficacy, or lack thereof, of Victor’s maneuver.

He dives in, rehashing his research for his novels _On Love: Eros_ and _On Love: Agape._ He explains the five concepts of love and how they differ, gives various examples, and only realizes he’s been doing all the talking when they stop to buy a bottle of water, with Yuuri silently offering it to him. He’s talked for at least 10 minutes, all to avoid saying _“no, not really”_.

Victor downs half the bottle, and when he’s done, Yuuri smiles with a too-clear touch of amusement. “That was quite the answer.”

It’s a mercy that Yuuri doesn’t call him out on his poor evasion tactics.

 

* * *

**1:43pm**

_Le Parfum des Fleurs_ makes quite an impression with its large golden sign, its columns that imitate marble and the fresco-like paintings on the ceiling and walls. However, what wins Victor and Yuuri’s hearts is the vast displays of pastries, bread and cakes.

Yuuri would very much like to not act like some kind of desperate Cookie Monster, but there’s no getting around it: it’s almost 2pm, and the last time he ate anything was six hours ago. Lucky for him, Victor doesn’t seem to be in a fasting mood either, finding at least a dozen things he’d like to eat and unwilling to take less than 6 of each.

“Yuuri,” Victor says in a hushed voice, “they’ve got passion fruit cheesecake. _Yuuri._ ”

“Shit,” Yuuri presses his nose up against the display. “We have to take some!”

“We should take all of them,” is the solemn reply.

20 minutes and a couple of grudging compromises to their wallets later, they leave with two mini-cheesecakes, half a dozen éclairs, four different sandwiches, and a couple of bottles of water.

They eat on a low wall on the banks of the Seine, watching the occasional cruise boat go by; but as pretty as the view is, Yuuri is more interested in stealing glances at Victor against the sparkling waters of the Seine, looking like a water nymph ready to lure men to their deaths. Yuuri would sure welcome all kinds of death, big and small, with Victor.

Pointing at a bridge not too far, Victor quietly tells him it’s the Pont des Arts, also known by tourists as the bridge of locks. Yuuri considers suggesting they go there — not to leave a lock on the railings (no one should be doing it, apparently, due to safety concerns) but just to… well, give Victor ideas. The bridge does constantly feature on those “Top 10 Spots to Kiss in Paris!” lists, after all. But that would assume Victor wants to kiss him in the first place, which is debatable. And it’s too cliché, anyway. Yeah. Yeah, better not to say anything.

It’s only when they’re about to finish their second sandwich that Victor breaks the silence once again.

“This reminds me of the Neva,” he says. When Yuuri looks at him inquiringly, he elaborates, “The river in Saint Petersburg. You can also sit on the banks, watch the tour boats… I think it’s been a while since I actually looked at it. Like, really looked at it, you know?”

Yuuri knows what he means, his mind bringing up a view he hasn’t seen in five years, but that has long been engraved in his memory. He nods. “The Hasetsu beach,” he replies, before taking another bite. Victor doesn’t ask, waiting for Yuuri to give him more — and Yuuri takes his sweet time chewing that bite, because putting thoughts into words is… a delicate task. Words are treacherous little things that rarely do what you want them to.

“I walked by the beach every morning on my way to school and going back home,” he says, more to his own sandwich than Victor. “And it was… so common. So natural. The sound of the waves, the seagulls’ cries, the ocean salt in the air… I can’t remember the last time I paid attention to them, either.” And now all of it is half a world away, as out of reach as the comfort of the hot waters of the onsen and his mom’s katsudon.

He finds Victor looking at him, the lines of his face softened. With a pale smile, Victor looks out into the river. “There are plenty of seagulls in Saint Petersburg, too,” he says, his tone half-detached, half-nostalgic, like it can’t decide what it wants to be. “And I’m so used to them in the morning that I stopped noticing them.” Victor’s brow creases even as he still looks into the distance. “Did you ever think you were going to leave Hasetsu?”

“I… well, I used to think of going places. I thought of dancing with the Royal Ballet, or the Mariinsky… or the Belgian Ballet,” he adds with a one-shoulder shrug, and Victor smiles at that, “I was always picturing myself somewhere else, but not… not actually leaving Hasetsu, if that makes sense?”

Victor nods as he distractedly collects the wrapping paper of the sandwiches and throws them in a paper bag. From the other bag, he takes out  chocolate éclair and gives it to Yuuri, taking another for himself. “It does.”

There’s a new silence, during which they’re both too occupied with their pastries. Watching Victor eat his, Yuuri recites a prayer to the baker who made them — not because it tastes like what they serve in Heaven, but because there’s so much filling that some of it lingers on Victor’s lips, and the sight is… hypnotizing. He’s 100% positive that _excuse me, mind if I lick that chocolate filling off your lips?_ isn’t something to ask someone he just met this morning, but damn if it isn’t tempting.

And for the final nail on Yuuri’s coffin, once he’s done with the dessert and wiped his lips with no outside help, Victor looks at him, his smile becoming that adorable heart that never fails to send arrows through Yuuri’s. “But it’s super cute.”

“What is cute?” Yuuri asks, perplexed.

“Tiny Yuuri dreaming of all these ballet companies.” He crosses his legs, resting his elbow on his thigh and his chin on one hand, showering Yuuri with a full-blown smile. “I can see you going home, walking by the ocean and dreaming of dancing in London, Paris, Moscow… it’s adorable!”

Well. There’s just no chance of hiding his blush in the light of the early afternoon sun, but Yuuri still ducks his head. It’s a reflex by now.

Polite enough to pretend he can’t see it, Victor continues, “And it’s amazing, that you already knew who you wanted to be. Me… I just went with the flow, I guess,” he says, opening up his hands half-heartedly, in a gesture that speaks volumes.

Yuuri considers that for a few seconds. “Well… going with the flow is fine too,” he says, getting up and taking off his heavy windbreaker, leaving only his sweater on. He should’ve done that hours ago, but he was just too lazy. “People don’t need to have plans all the time, I think, they just… need to be who they are. It’s already hard enough not lose yourself.” He smiles, trying not to drown all at once in the eyes focused on him. “You don’t need to be anything else other than Victor.”

The only immediate answer from Victor is a silent stare, one that stretches on and on, unwelcomingly so. Yuuri is on the verge of regretting everything he’s ever said when Victor slowly nods, his eyes never leaving Yuuri’s. “Yeah. I guess so.”

Without another word, they throw away their trash and resume their walk in renewed silence — until Victor gasps, that is. He looks back and finds him clutching his chest.

“Yuuuuuri! Show me pictures of you as a kid in your tiny ballet outfits!”

“No.” Yuuri shakes his head vehemently. “Absolutely not!”

“Yuuriiiiii! C’mon, you _have_ to have at least one! Don’t tell me your family didn’t take pictures, Yuuuuuriiiiiii!”

Oh they did, alright. His mom must have at least two full albums of his dance endeavors, and he does have a couple posted on his Instagram for a #tbt, courtesy of Phichit’s insistence. Showing them to Victor is out of the question though.

He shoots Victor a grin. “Sorry, you’d have to go all the way to Hasetsu to see those.”

“You’re funny,” Victor replies cooly. “Who says I wouldn’t?”

Yuuri rolls his eyes. Right.

 

* * *

**2:10pm**

Yuuri is talking, and Victor is listening. Definitely listening. Well, half-listening. What he is, is in a dilemma, in that he loves listening to Yuuri — but he’s also very fond of looking at Yuuri; and if looking at him before in that horrible windbreaker was already a pleasure, now that he took it off, nothing in Paris can quite rival it.

It stood to reason that Yuuri would have a nice body, him being a professional dancer and all. But knowing something and seeing it with your own eyes are two very different things, an experience Victor is now having first-hand.

Yuuri’s sweater clings to him enough to accentuate the curve of his shoulders, and also to let Victor discern well-defined biceps that just may be able to carry a full-grown man. Or hold him against a wall. A guy can dream, right? And look at that exposed neck, begging to be kissed. Or bitten, whatever Yuuri prefers, Victor will take either — or both, why not both? He’s also able to get a better look at Yuuri’s thighs; he didn’t notice before because of the bulk and length of the coat, but either those jeans are very flattering, or Yuuri’s thighs are a work of art worthy of the Louvre. He’s ready to believe the latter, especially considering the view of his ass Victor gets whenever Yuuri walks ahead. Victor could write an entire book of sonnets about that view, get it published, and still have things to say about it. And do with it. He can be a man of action, too.

But as lost in the Gospel of Coatless Yuuri as he is, Victor’s brain still manages to process one word that snaps him back into reality.

“Wait. What do you mean ‘diet’?” he says. Yuuri’s as lean as it gets.

Yuuri half-smiles and kicks a small stone out of the way. “I, uh… I was a bit of a chubby child. I put on weight easily, more easily than I lose it, so… I have to watch what I eat, if I want to have a career in dance,” Yuuri explains with a chuckle just on this side of bitter.

Victor, on the other hand, is lost again, this time on the imaginary view of a chubby Yuuri, and he immediately decides he wants that too. Chubby Yuuri will be a different work of art, but no less of one.

“My mom always helped me with that,” Yuuri goes on, oblivious to Victor’s daydreams of a vacations belly, “teaching me how to make stuff I could eat on a diet and still enjoy, that kinda thing.”

Every time Yuuri mentions his mom his face lights up, making Victor wonder what kind of woman she is. His bar for good moms is really low, but he thinks he would like to know Yuuri’s.

“It’s great that your family supports you. A lot of people would worry about a career in dance.”

“Yeah, definitely! They’ve always supported me, no matter what. What— oh, sorry, _pardon_ ,” Yuuri apologizes after bumping into an old man. The man acknowledges it with a passing nod, and they move on. “What about your family? Do they…?” Yuuri trails off.

“Well, my parents…” Victor runs a hand through his hair. To get his bangs out of his eyes, he tells himself, and not because he’s too aware of his own hands, of his own steps and next words. “I don’t think they care much whether I do this or that, to be honest. We’re not that close. We just exchange phone calls on holidays and birthdays.”

Yuuri may not know how to hide his feelings, but what to say of Victor, who spills truths like he’s a fountain?

“You don’t visit each other?” Yuuri asks. The question could’ve come with a layer of pity or judgment, but it just sounded unsurprised, as if you and your parents being indifferent to each other were normal. Maybe it is.

“I visited a couple of years ago. Mom was in the hospital for a minor surgery, so I went, but other than that… They usually call on my birthday, but I think they forgot last year.” At Yuuri’s badly concealed horror, he hurries to add, “But it’s okay! Yakov took me out to dinner and it was great.”

“Your godfather?”

Victor nods, impressed Yuuri remembers that tidbit. “Yeah. I work with him, too.”

“Ohh, you didn’t say that! What do you d—” Yuuri begins, letting the question die on his lips when Victor’s eyes widen. “What?”

“I keep forgetting to tell you something.” Victor turns to fully face him, because he needs to see every detail of Yuuri’s face when he freaks out. “I haven’t told you about Yakov’s wife. You may have heard of her.” He smiles.

 

* * *

**4:35pm**

“I’m beginning to think that this will be my sole memory of Paris,” Yuuri says. When Victor looks with a raised eyebrow, he elaborates, “watching boats go by.”

Victor chuckles. Indeed, the pond has no shortage of remote control boats in a plethora of colors, while the children control them from the shore with tiny screams of delight. They ignore the children, as do most everyone else there, while sitting on one of the various benches scattered around the park. Yuuri takes in the view of the gardens and the Palais de Luxembourg, standing in all of its historical glory on the other side of the pond; Victor, however, only has eyes for another view, a vastly superior one as far as he’s concerned.

“I’m offended,” Victor says. He almost gasps in horror, but he can’t quite muster the energy. Peaceful gardens under bright open skies don’t leave a lot of room for theatricals. “I was sure I made an impression in the last…” he takes one of his arms from the backrest behind Yuuri and glances at his watch, “nine hours.”

“You did,” Yuuri confirms, voice cool as he continues, “you’ll always be the guy who forgot to inform me his godmother is _one of the greatest prima ballerinas this world has ever seen._ ”

Victor lets out a low whine. “Yuuuuuriiiii!!! C’mon, I said I’m sorry! I really, truly forgot!”

The look he gets in response is of sheer horror. “How can you forget _Lilia Baranovskaya?!_ ”

“Well, I was more focused on you than on my godmother, if you want to know,” Victor replies, hoping the mixture of fake indignation and charming pick-up line will do the trick. “You can’t blame me for that.”

The faint blush on Yuuri’s cheeks and the silence that goes with it tell him it does do the trick.

A group of children run by screaming as they play, making Victor wince. A foot nudges his, and he finds Yuuri fighting off a laugh.

“Screaming couples, screaming children… we’re out of luck today, aren’t we?”

Sighing a “true”, Victor gets on his feet, and with a burst of courage he’s been trying to gather all afternoon, he offers a hand to Yuuri. “Wanna walk around the gardens some more?”

Yuuri looks at the hand offered, holding his breath so clearly it’s endearing. He seems to walk through life with his every thought written on his face, and every beat of his heart on his sleeve; it’s nothing short of a miracle that life has allowed him to go on unscathed. Victor wonders, not for the first time today, what it’d be like to go through life by his side, watching the miracle of Yuuri unfold as days go by.

Yuuri takes his hand. “Yeah, let’s.”

Hand in hand, they go on the gravel path while the winter sun, just shy of warm, casts the last of its light on the entire park. Here and there people occupy the chairs and benches strategically positioned along the tree-lined promenade, doing nothing but people-watching or lazily reading a book. The two of them move about the paths just as languidly, never stopping and never hurrying.

They eventually stop at a fountain that attracts Yuuri’s instant attention. “This is the Medici Fountain,” Victor explains. The flaxen colors of sunset spill over the waters, but the surrounding trees are mostly bare, depriving the site of the luscious green of the summer or the striking gold of autumn; Victor’s seen the fountain and its statues a few times before, but a fascinated Yuuri pulls him along.

“These are amazing,” he whispers, his eyes scrutinizing every inch of the statues sculpted in marble — an enormous man on a rock, looking down on a surprised pair of lovers. “Do you know who they’re supposed to be?”

Leaning closer to Yuuri, Victor points at the greenish statue at the top. “That’s Polyphemus, son of Poseidon, and the lovers are Acis and Galatea. Legend says Polyphemus killed Acis so he could have Galatea for himself.”

“It’s gorgeous,” Yuuri replies, his eyes glued to the fountain.

Victor hums, distracted — he’s so close to Yuuri now he thinks he can smell the shampoo in his hair. _“I smell of airplane,”_ Yuuri complained earlier, but it’s not true. He smells like everything Victor didn’t know he wanted, and it’s intoxicating.

He moves another inch or two, pressing their arms together. Yuuri’s hand, warm and welcoming in his, is his only anchor to here and now.

“There used to be a statue of Venus here instead,” Victor continues, “and some say this was a place for lovers’ rendezvous because of that. So you know, there’s that,” he adds, hearing the nervousness creep into his voice. Yuuri looks back at him with his brows drawn together. “And… we have a sunset, too. It seems like… I mean, it would be a waste, don’t you think?”

Yuuri stares. “What do you mean?”

Well, this is awful. Victor’s much more rusty than he gave himself credit for; his words don’t sound _at all_ like they did in his head.

He clears his throat and goes in another direction. “I, um… I thought of taking you to the Pont des Arts — you know, the bridge with all the locks? But I thought it might be too cliché, and maybe a bit on the nose, and maybe you wouldn’t want to, so—” he stops rambling when the corners of Yuuri’s mouth turn up into a small smile.

“You wanted to take me to the bridge of locks?”

Victor nods, the words not coming out — it’s hard to concentrate with Yuuri this close, dying sunlight playing on his dark hair and turning his eyes into glittering pools of amber, while his arms gently wrap themselves around Victor’s neck and knock all semblance of cohesion out of him.

“Why?” Yuuri murmurs.

“To, um… you know,” is Victor’s eloquent answer. “It’s a romantic spot.”

One of Yuuri’s hands starts playing with the hair on Victor’s neck, firing goosebumps on his skin and making his toes curl in his shoes.

“Are you trying to say you want to kiss me?” Yuuri asks, his voice dropping to the hushed tones usually reserved for secrets. His eyes flit briefly to Victor’s lips, and back again to his eyes, in a mix of confidence and shyness that Victor longs to drink from until they’re both downright exhausted.

His hands find Yuuri’s waist and cling to it like a man lost in the desert would to water; he has the satisfaction to see the blush on Yuuri’s face deepen to crimson.

“Wanted to kiss you the whole day, to be honest,” he whispers, leaning down as Yuuri stands on tiptoe — and what was once his anchor is now what sends him adrift at sea as he gets lost in Yuuri’s kiss.

Only a gentle caress of lips at first, it still brings Victor to his knees with the promise of everything that lies beyond Yuuri’s blushes. He shifts his hand from Yuuri’s waist, and they roam slowly up his rib cage and his back, feeling Yuuri shiver at the touch.

But when Victor nips at his lips like he promised himself he would, it’s like a switch is flipped: arms still around Victor’s neck, Yuuri pulls him closer with new authority, and as he tilts his head like a sunflower towards the sun, his lips part to let Victor in without reserve.

And with that single move Victor’s walls — long breached beyond hope — are completely reduced to dust.

For all the times he’s written kissing scenes in his novels, describing hearts racing and heads in the clouds, he knew nothing of what it should be like. This is what he should’ve been writing about: being able to drink someone else’s warmth and to breathe in every little sound they make. He should’ve been writing about unconditional surrender and a defeat that feels like victory.

A defeat that comes with the taste of Yuuri’s tongue, heady and sweet against his, and the pressure of his lips as they both imprint more urgency into their kiss. If this is what surrender feels like, Victor doesn’t know what he’s been fighting for all these years. He’ll give himself over a thousand times and beg for the slowest execution possible.

How long they spend tangled up in each other is a question he’ll never be able to answer; he only knows the sun has almost disappeared in the horizon when Yuuri breaks apart — reluctantly, moving less than an inch away before he murmurs into Victor’s mouth, “Same.”

Victor breathes a laugh. “Good to know,” he whispers. His hands come up to Yuuri’s face, and he runs his thumb along Yuuri’s jawline. When he opens his eyes, he finds Yuuri’s staring into them, and that alone has the power to make his knees buckle. He’s so goddamn beautiful it makes Victor’s heart ache.

“We should get going, I think,” Yuuri says. He still doesn’t move despite his own words.

“There are lots of things we should, if you ask me,” Victor replies. He’s perfect where he is right now, with Yuuri in his arms and breathing from the same air as him. He watches Yuuri’s kiss-bitten lips break into another smile as he nods; he bridges the small distance between them once more by pulling Victor by the lapel of his coat.

The last thought Victor has before succumbing again is that there’s no reason for them to go anywhere: their time together has just begun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Before Sunrise" and its sequel "Before Sunset" are two of my favorite movies, and I've been waiting for a long time to write this AU. When the Viktuuri Fluff Bang opened, I knew what I had to do XD.
> 
> I do not live in Paris, nor have I ever been there, so people who do know the city: forgive me if I've written anything too stupid. I've done so, so much research for this, but it's very easy to miss an essential detail about something here or there!
> 
> The title comes from the song "A waltz for a night", from the movie "Before Sunset". 
> 
> Infinite thanks to my betas [Rae](http://extranikiforov.tumblr.com/), [Dommi](http://sinkingorswimming.tumblr.com/) and [Luc](http://maydei.tumblr.com/) you guys are amazing! ♥
> 
> Also a million thanks to my bang partner, [rikichie](https://rikichie.tumblr.com/), who is made of patience and loveliness, and is blessing me with her art for the next chapter!
> 
> And as always, feel free to come find me on [Tumblr](http://thehobbem.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/thehobbem)!


	2. let me sing you a waltz (about this one night stand)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> art by the lovely [rikichie](https://twitter.com/rikicohn)!

**7pm**

“I should’ve known you’d be way too good at this,” Victor mumbles. “Look at you, you’re like a swan in the water!”

Yuuri chuckles. “Sorry! I’ve been skating for years,” he says, gliding backwards on the ice in a move that earns him another groan and a whispered, half-impressed _“show-off”_ from Victor. “But you’re not bad at skating either.”

“I’m functional,” Victor points out, “I don’t fall, I control my speed, I can skate backwards sometimes… nothing like you. But then,” he adds with a wink, “what is?”

There it is: that dangerous wink that never fails to set Yuuri’s face on fire. Victor should be ashamed, except that he probably knows too well the effect of his trademark move and has no shame to speak of. If he did, he wouldn’t say things like that.

Without answering that bit of flirting, Yuuri looks around the rink. If there’s one thing he did not expect about his move to Europe, it was a night skating at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. With waves of glittering light streaming down like a champagne fountain, the tower illuminates the city like golden topaz against the night sky.

On the ice rink, children and adults alike skate around them — some whizzing past, others slogging by. But all of them move and laugh and talk, and Victor and Yuuri are nothing but a dot among the dozens of couples enjoying a night at the Christmas Village.

“You know what,” Victor says suddenly, “I think I need you to hold my hand.”

Yuuri scrunches his face in confusion. “You don’t? You’re doing fine.”

As if to prove the veracity of those words, Victor gracefully slides out of the way of a girl who doesn't seem to know how to stop. As she arrives safe and sound in her boyfriend's arms, Victor turns to Yuuri:

“I'm also looking for excuses to hold your hand, _solnyshko_. I agree it's a weak one, but it's all I got for the moment.” And with another wink that shatters Yuuri’s peace of mind, Victor stretches out a hand to him.

Trying to hide a smile that insists on coming out, Yuuri takes the hand, twining their fingers like honeysuckles around a fence. It’s not his fault their hands feel like two matching puzzle pieces, is it? Or that Victor’s smile rivals the Eiffel Tower in radiance? Yuuri really has no other option.

After a moment or two, he mumbles, “You don’t have to look for an excuse.”

“What do you mean?”

“To hold my hand. You can just… hold it,” he says.

Victor’s smile turns into that havoc-wreaking heart again. It should really be forbidden. “I’ll remember that! You know, I spent the entire day looking for excuses to hold your hand, kiss you, talk to you…”

Yuuri pulls him along, skating backwards so as to face him. “What do you mean, you talked to me just fine this morning!”

“Pff, you don’t know how long I tried to come up with something to say! I was just lucky that couple was accusing each other of being alcoholics.”

Yuuri’s eyes go wide. “Is that what they were saying?!”

Victor shrugs. “Yeah. Not the best example of marriage, I’ll tell you that. But before they started being awful, I thought of all kinds of opening lines: the weather, how crowded the station was, a joke, the book you were reading… what were you reading, by the way? I couldn’t see the title, and that really got in the way of a brilliant opening line, if you must know,” he says, sniffing indignantly.

 _“Oh my God, Yuuri,_ **_Stay With Me_ ** _again? Don’t you get tired of all that… schmaltz?”_

_“It’s not schmaltz!” Yuuri protests. At Phichit’s raised eyebrows, he amends it. “It’s not too much schmaltz.”_

_Phichit turns the pocket book edition around in his hands. “Yes, it is, all of Nikiforov’s books are super, like, gooey. And it’s also, what, the fifth time you’re reading this?”_

_Seventh, but Phichit doesn’t need to know that._

He also doesn’t need to know that the train ride to Brussels will be the eighth time Yuuri reads it. Yeah, maybe V. Y. Nikiforov’s books are a bit saccharine, but that is just at first glance. Behind the façade of sweet stories that appeal to the masses, there’s prose that flows like water and shines like gold in the current. There’s also a tired aloofness with which the author views not only their characters, but the world at large — a unique point of view that makes their ostensibly happy endings just that: ostensible. But in order to know that Phichit would have to read the books, instead of rewatching _The King and the Skater_ for the 48th time.

He doesn’t want to have the same conversation with Victor, so he takes the subject for a spin.

“How do you know it would’ve been brilliant if you don’t even know which book it was?!”

“Because I’m good with books,” Victor answers, leaning forward and planting a small kiss on Yuuri’s nose as they glide.

“Well, mister Good-with-books,” Yuuri says, deflecting both from the book question and from the blush on his face that has Victor smile in victory, “how do you feel about some mulled wine?” He points at one of the food stalls outside the rink. Like all the others, it’s built to imitate the style of a colonial house and heavily decorated in blinking Christmas lights, with a sign that says _gluhwein_.

With an enthusiastic yes from Victor, they leave the rink and return their rental skates, making their way to the stall. A couple of euros later, they’re walking around the Christmas Village sharing a cup of mulled wine laced with cinnamon and clove; it’s early January, but between the ubiquitous white decoration, blinking lights, and reindeers hanging from naked tree branches, it could easily be the height of a White Christmas. The smiles on every face and the puffs of air coming out of their mouths as they laugh certainly imply so.

Victor and Yuuri enjoy a slow walk, stopping at everything that remotely sparks their interest. Here’s a pop-up snow park for kids, there’s a kiosk with a selection of copper cauldrons of different sizes and shapes, offering all sorts of soups to warm people’s night. Another stand sells all the calories Yuuri could never consume in a whole year, from Alsatian sausages dipped in cheese fondue, and hot roasted chestnuts, to homemade Christmas cookies, gingerbread, and Nutella-filled crepes.

As they pass the wine cup back and forth between them, Victor gives him a smile and takes his hand again.

“See? No need for excuses,” Yuuri says, and throws in a wink for good measure. He’s not sure at what point of the day he picked that up from Victor — only that as clumsy as he feels doing it, it still seems to have the desired effect: Victor’s nose slowly becomes dusted with pink.

“Very true. It’s just been… I don’t know, I think _years_ since I’ve been in a relationship,” he says in-between two gulps of wine. He laughs dismissively, but the touch of bitterness is audible still. “Guess I don’t know how to do any of it anymore.”

 _Relationship_. Is that what this is, then? They’re doing couple-y things together, for sure, have been doing them for the whole day; but does that constitute a relationship? Does Victor think this is the beginning of one? More importantly: does Yuuri?

As if reading his thoughts — or, more likely, his silence — Victor turns to him, his hand coming loose in the intertwine of their fingers and him looking less composed than usual. “Listen, when I— when I say relationship, I don’t mean… I just mean being with someone. In… in whatever capacity. If that makes sense? I—”

Yuuri stops him with a faint smile. “I know what you mean.” He thinks he does, anyway. They haven’t discussed the “couple” part of any of this, and it’s not clear whether they ever will; what is clear is that neither of them should force the subject and let it bring the night apart.

The grip of Victor’s hand turns steady and warm again, but the conversation has come to a halt as they walk on. The only words they exchange now are “here” and “hmm?” everytime they pass the cup, and Yuuri doesn’t know if that’s for the best or not. Again, words are treacherous. What he needs here, he decides, is not to rely solely on words.

Other than typical food, the market also excels in gifts and souvenirs, with every other stall displaying woolen scarves, hats and mittens, hand-painted ceramics, decorated notebooks, and wooden toys that could easily have been plucked from a 19th century fairy-tale. And it’s exactly one such stall that makes Yuuri stop so fast that he almost spills some of the wine.

“Yuuri, is everything—”

“Sorry, just— let me take a look at this!” Yuuri says, pushing the cup into Victor’s hands before dashing away. With his basic French-speaking skills, he gets a smile from the woman at the stall and she picks what he wants from the display hanging from the roof: a snowflake, carefully carved out of crystal, so fragile-looking Yuuri is afraid of breaking it just by looking at it. Smaller than the palm of his hand, the crystal catches the lights of the market and sprinkles it back on the ground in a thousand tiny rainbows.

It’s exactly what he needs.

He’s getting his change from the woman when Victor shows up by his side. Before he can ask (and before he himself can lose his courage), Yuuri turns around and places the snowflake in his right hand.

“Here. For you.”

His eyes go back and forth between Victor’s hand and Victor’s eyes — he doesn’t _want_ to be staring at him to gauge his reaction, but his eyes have a will of their own. There’s no visible reaction to gauge so far: Victor only blinks at the snowflake.

“It’s, um… it’s a ‘thank you’. You know, for— for today,” Yuuri stammers. He wishes he could say it the way it sounds in his head: smooth and convincing.

“I, um… I know it’s probably a Christmas tree ornament or something,” he adds hurriedly, pointing at the silk strap attached to the top of the crystal, “but I just thought… it’s pretty.” _Like you_.

A beat goes by in silence before Victor turns, not to him, but to the salesgirl and asks in perfect French: “Excuse me, is there another?” He shows her the ornament.

When the girl plucks an identical one from the display and gives it to him, he places it in Yuuri’s hand in his turn, smiling at him once again.

“It’s only fair that you get one too,” he says, gently closing Yuuri’s hand on it. “I’m the one who should be thanking you for today.”

That extricates a smile from Yuuri, one that’s always fighting to come up for air whenever Victor looks at him like that — like Yuuri is the only thing worth looking at in the entire city.

After paying for the second snowflake, Victor opens his arm to him, offering more than a hand this time. Yuuri slots himself against Victor, his arm going around Victor’s waist.

“I’m hungry,” he says, and only then does he realize that his smile hasn’t left his lips yet.

Neither has Victor’s, for that matter. “Me too. Let’s go grab a bite.”

 

* * *

**8:42pm**

The idea of dining on a boat restaurant was an excellent one. However, having a meal on a _moving_ boat was not something Yuuri was sure he could do. He’s never been airsick, but stranger things have happened than people being seasick, especially when food is involved. Not willing to put this to the test, they decided to have dinner on a moored boat restaurant instead.

Eating inside would probably have been more comfortable, with none of the cold breeze of a winter night snaking itself into the comfort of their meal, and the string quartet playing in the middle of the room; on the other hand, how could anyone choose to sit inside, with such a lovely breeze of a winter night to be had outside, and with such a stunning view of the city lights multiplied by a hundred on the waters of the Seine?

“So you _have_ social media, but no one knows it? No one knows your Instagram, Twitter, nothing?” Yuuri asks, though he can barely look up from his dessert. That Victor is reclusive in his “normal life” is an interesting thought — but so is that _crème brûlée_ in front of him. God, that thing is delicious, and worlds apart from what Americans think passes as _crème brûlée_ _._

The waiter comes by with their second bottle of wine. Once their glasses are full and the waiter is out of earshot — Victor is not a fan of talking about himself in front of other people, it seems — he goes on:

“Well, not ‘no one’. Yakov and Lilia have my Instagram, and so does Yura. A friend who lives in Zurich. My other cousin Mila… but _not_ cousin Gosha,” he adds, with such vehemence Yuuri blinks at him. “It’s just… if Gosha had my social media he’d flood it with complaints about his love life. It’s always one woman or another,” he says with a shrug. “I’m not gonna let him fill my inbox with things like ‘I’m selective. I only choose those who do not care for me’ with, like, a random image of a sunset in the background. You know what I’m talking about?” Victor ends with an appeal.

“Yup. I’ve seen enough of those, they’re awful. Whatever you do, do _not_ let your cousin in. He clearly doesn’t know how to use social media.”

“Who does? It's all a cesspit anyway. Which is why I only use Instagram to post pictures of Makkachin.”

“I was gonna ask you for your Instagram or Twitter, but that would be a waste of time, then,” Yuuri jokes. Well. Half-jokes.

 _It’s been years_ _since I’ve been in a relationship_ still echoes in his head, with all its possible ramifications. Does either of them want to be in a relationship, and all that it implies? They still barely know each other, and how would that work with them living in different countries? Different lives, too, with Yuuri about to go to different corners of the world for long stretches of time with the company.

On the other side of the scale, light as a feather but as heavy as his heart, sits one single argument weighed against the others: Victor himself. Or it should be one single argument, but it’s more of an umbrella under which lie several other small, but equally effective arguments: Victor’s smiles, winks, and laughter; Victor’s words, which never allow Yuuri to feel awkward or intruding; Victor’s eyes, and hair, and broad shoulders that Yuuri would love to use as a pillow — or to pepper with kisses and bites, why not? Victor’s little truths that come out when he least expects them to, opening a door Yuuri would’ve never had the courage to knock on otherwise. Victor, all of him. That’s a very strong counter-argument to put an end to that discussion.

Except that Victor would have to feel the same about Yuuri, and the slight rise of panic with which he said _I don’t mean… I just mean being with someone_ is enough to give Yuuri pause. A pause that comes out as a small dismissive joke about not asking him for his Instagram.

“Well,” Victor says, an answer that Yuuri waits with bated breath without knowing it, “not a complete waste of time. You’d get to see every step Makka takes.”

Right. Makka.

“So you’re _that_ kind of Instagram person,” Yuuri replies, and maybe he focuses extra hard on his _crème brulée_ , digging to see if it can still taste as good as it did before. It does not. “Not sure I want it now,” he jokes again.

Victor gasps, clutching his chest in mock horror. “What about me?”

“You?”

“You could talk to me, Yuuri, have you thought of that? I mean,” Victor drops the act for a moment; following the shift of his voice, Yuuri drops his spoon without a sound, “assuming you’ll want to, of course,” he says, running a hand through his bangs while his eyes roam around the boat and avoid Yuuri’s.

What Yuuri wants is to talk to Victor every day — preferably in person, but via internet would do too. What Victor most likely wants, though, is not to be saddled with some guy he met on a train station. What can Yuuri do but give him a way out?

“Well, you know what’s… what’s probably gonna happen, right? People always talk of ‘keeping in touch’ and stuff, but it all ends as just, like, a bunch of likes on each other’s posts, and that’s it. It all… fizzles out in the end.”

Victor runs another restless hand through his hair. “Right. Not much point in exchanging contact information.”

Yuuri shakes his head, going back to what’s left of his dessert with redoubled concentration. “Yeah.”

“I see.” Yuuri doesn’t look up, but he can still see Victor not moving for a couple of seconds. Suddenly, he claps. “Well! That leaves me tonight, then! Gotta make the most of it. You know what we should do after we’re done here?”

Before Yuuri can even reply, the music coming from the inside of the restaurant raises in volume: the string quartet is moving to the outside of the boat, and settling a few meters away from them before beginning a new piece.

A piece that Yuuri knows by heart at this point.

Victor turns to him with surprise in his eyes when Yuuri hums along. “You know this?”

“ _Stammi Vicino?_ Yes, I do.” V. Y. Nikiforov used the piece as a plot point in _Stay With Me,_ and after his very first read, Yuuri ran to his computer to find the old song. He’s got it on heavy rotation on Spotify, and even learned to play it on the piano. Phichit eventually forbade him from playing it when he was in the apartment, which… fair.

“It’s from an old opera I love. So,” Victor says, standing up, “I was going to say we should go dancing after this, but since we already have the music… would you do me the honor?” he asks, stretching out a hand to Yuuri in invitation. Yuuri accepts it with no reluctance.

With one hand holding his, and the other on the small of his back, Victor slowly leads them through the steps, for which Yuuri is grateful. He could easily lead, but sometimes all one wants is to surrender themselves into someone else’s arms. So he lets Victor dictate where they go, when, how fast or how slow; how much more of himself could he surrender, should Victor allow him?

He’s not surprised to realize Victor also knows the lyrics; he just wishes Victor wouldn’t whisper them in his ear right now. With no other choice, Yuuri lays his head on Victor’s shoulder; that way he can avoid hearing the rest and enjoy those shoulders like he wanted to. A win-win.

The aria ends, like all things must — like tonight and their story eventually will. But neither of them seems to care, and their dance continues long after the string quartet has left the restaurant.

* * *

**10:36pm**

“Shhhh!!!”

At Victor’s poor shushing attempt, made more of laughter than of any real shushing, Yuuri snorts so loud an old lady fixes them with a cold stare as she walks by. Or tries to, as neither of them can be fixed to anything right now — Victor feels like he’s walking on clouds, and also as if said clouds could not be pinned down in a straight line. But maybe that’s just his feet after two bottles of wine.

The grass they throw themselves on, however, doesn’t feel like clouds. Not the soft, fluffy clouds one can willingly mistake for puppies and kittens, anyway; more like the dark, unyielding ones that pile up in the horizon before the rain. One would think the grass at the Bois de Vincennes would be more welcoming to tourists.

Bottle in hand, Yuuri carefully joins him on the grass with a “You’re insane.”

“Right,” Victor scoffs. “I’m the insane one. I’m not the one carrying an open bottle of champagne to a park!”

“No, but you _are_ the one who stole two glass flutes from the restaurant.”

“How else are we supposed to drink this?!”

Yuuri turns his head and looks at him with a smile that both verges on respect and plays with mockery. “True. You think of everything.”

Not quite able to look away, Victor nods. “I know.” On the same breath and the same honest impulse that has nagged at him all day, he adds, “I can’t get enough of your eyes.”

Apparently Yuuri can get enough of his, because he turns his head to look back at the stars above. “Thanks.”

“It’s true. Hey,” he says, lightly nudging him, and Yuuri looks again. “I mean it. You have… they’re like…” He’s left fumbling for words again. Even if he uses all his arsenal, how can he possibly do justice to those eyes with mere words?

“They’re brown,” Yuuri says deadpan.

“Yeah, and _gorgeous_. I could look at them all day.”

The blush comes with a sigh. “Victor, you— give me the glasses.”

Victor obeys without blinking, and Yuuri fills the flutes with champagne to the brim. It pours golden and sparkly into the glass, bringing bubbles that tickle Victor’s nose, and silence that falls as they drink from glasses as stolen as their day.

Once his flute is empty Yuuri lies down once again, back to staring at the stars, arms splayed wide and touching Victor’s. Victor follows suit, and tries to look for constellations on the night sky. He used to be good at it, back when he still looked up, and he might even be able to find them again if most of his focus weren’t on the sensation of Yuuri’s fingers brushing against his.

Without looking away from the sky, Yuuri breaks the silence with a quiet “Why not?”, doing his part in a conversation Victor is not yet privy to.

“Why not what?”

“A relationship. You said you haven’t had one in years. Why not?”

Oh. That.

Good thing they’re busy staring at the stars, then, instead of at each other; it makes it easier. He doesn’t allow for any time to second-guess himself:

“I was too busy trying to be who I thought I wanted to be.” There. Like ripping a band-aid off.

Yuuri lets out a soft “I see”, and says no more. With barely anyone out at this time of night, the sheer size of Bois de Vincennes makes sure no one stumbles upon them as they lie on the shore of Lake Daumesnil. They’re alone in their piece of time.

Eventually, though, Victor hears Yuuri take a deep breath, a preface to: “At least you’ve had a relationship.”

It takes one or two seconds for that to properly sink in. “You—”

“I’ve kissed before,” Yuuri explains, his tone as flat as the ground they’re on, “and I, um… you know, done other stuff, too. But not… what matters. No relationships.”

Victor’s tongue itches with new impulses — the impulse to ask ‘why’, for instance, because there’s absolutely no chance no one has ever wanted to be with Yuuri; he’d sooner believe Yuuri simply refuses the throngs of men and women throwing themselves at his feet. The impulse to beg to let him change that, let Victor have more than one day and night. The impulse to persuade him, not with his words, but with his actual tongue, wherever he wants it, public park be damned.

He gives in to the first one. “Why?”

Another long, drawn out breath. “People have expectations,” Yuuri explains. “They… they see you, they think you’re one thing, or that you’re gonna be one thing when you get together, and… you’re not. You can’t be. All you get to be is a disappointment, because people go in with all these… these…”

“Expectations?”

“Yeah! So what happens when I open the door, and they walk in, look around and go ‘oh, sorry, I thought the living room was bigger, or that there were more bedrooms, or that the bathroom had a porcelain tub’? And all you have to show is a tiny studio apartment? With no tub? They… leave.”

Victor looks at him. “You think you only have a tiny studio apartment with no tub?”

Yuuri shrugs, letting that be the entirety of his answer. Victor gets up on one elbow — he needs to, both to see Yuuri better and to think better. To think on his feet, so to speak, because he wants to be very clear about this.

“Yuuri, _you_ are the tub. And the bedrooms. And… and all the square footage.”

That gets him the attention from those amber eyes again. He cannot really see them in this light, but he knows them. Has known them for more than twelve hours, has thought of little else.

He’s still trying to discern the brown in the darkness when Yuuri’s lips find his, easy as a ship finds a lighthouse in the night. He can taste the champagne off Yuuri’s tongue, the softness of his lips, and the invitation luring Victor to the brink of a small death like a songless siren.

Using his free hand, Victor slowly rakes through Yuuri’s hair; it slips through his fingers like silk, and he grabs a fistful and pulls Yuuri closer. When Yuuri moans into their kiss, the sound travels straight to the pit of his stomach, while Yuuri’s fingers run along the line of his neck and set his nerves on fire one by one. Victor presses in, every inch of him trying to satisfy his hunger for more skin, more of Yuuri’s lips, _more_. His whole body curves into Yuuri’s, reason giving in the reins to instinct.

Yuuri breaks the kiss with a gasp, grip firm on the lapel of Victor’s overcoat and eyes still closed. He brings their foreheads together, whispering, “Sorry, I’m so sorry, I uhh… we should…” he swallows and opens his eyes. “We should… not.”

Victor makes to move away — away from the line he’s crossed without thinking — but Yuuri’s grasp on his coat keeps him in place. “No, you— don’t go. I just…” He looks into Victor’s eyes and his hands lose some of the despair, caressing the fabric instead. “I don’t want to be a story.” He punctuates that last statement with a kiss on Victor’s nose and a sad smile, both of which have Victor’s heart cracking in their hold.

He takes Yuuri’s hand, rubbing gentle circles on his palm. “Listen. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, that I can promise you. But what do you mean, ‘a story’?”

Yuuri groans, hiding his face under his other arm, the words coming out muffled. “It’s stupid.” He ignores Victor’s _“it’s not stupid”_ and moves on, “I don’t want to be the story of the exotic Asian you met on your trip, had an amazing day with, slept with, and never saw or heard from again.”

There’s a plethora of issues to address in that one single sentence, each more baffling than the last. Victor clings to what strikes him as the easiest one. “Why are you ‘exotic’ in that story?”

“Because westerners always say Asians are ‘exotic’,” he says, emphasizing his point with a one-handed air-quote.

Victor hides a smile. “Right. Well, Mr. Exotic Asian, let me tell you something. You’re not—” his elbow complaining from the continuous strain, Victor lies back on the grass again, his other hand still playing with Yuuri’s. “You’re not a story to tell at cocktail parties or anything.” He takes the crystal snowflake from his coat pocket, enveloped in thick bubble wrap, and dangles it in front of their eyes. “You’re the best day I ever had. That’s for me, and no one else.”

If only that overflow of painful honesty were the alcohol talking. He could lie and blame it all on it later, but the fact is that truths just naturally bubble to the surface when faced with Yuuri, and there’s nothing Victor can do to stop it, drunk or sober.

He doesn’t know what to expect as an answer, or if to expect any, but what Yuuri whispers next is more Victor’s hope taken form than any actual expectation: “You too.”

They lie in common quiet for Victor wouldn’t know how long, only that it’s long enough for him to contemplate all variations of “we should see each other again”, in as many different words as possible, in all languages he knows, in as many tones of voice as he can manage. Long enough for him to contemplate all the different ways he wishes Yuuri would say ‘yes’, and all the ways, from delicate to brusque, in which he’ll say ‘no’.

He goes from drawing abstract patterns on Yuuri’s palm to loosely lacing their fingers together, only to escape again and let his fingers run up and down Yuuri’s hand, from his wrist to the tip of his fingers. Yuuri’s got long, thin fingers, fit for a piano or a guitar. Or a ring. Not that he would propose to Yuuri after just twelve hours or anything — but given the choice between not seeing Yuuri ever again or marrying him on the spot, Victor wouldn’t even blink before going for the wedding rings. He wouldn’t mind waking him up with breakfast in bed on weekends, or having him by his side as they walk Makka in the park in the morning. Having him as a constant, as the one certainty in the stack of maybes and should haves Victor carries on his back.

He brings Yuuri’s hand to his lips, placing a small kiss on his ring finger and hearing Yuuri hold his breath. With Yuuri around he might not even mind being himself, for a change.

Hands still entwined, Yuuri pulls him closer until Victor’s lying on top of him. Victor goes with the ease of a dandelion in the wind.

“This is also for you, and no one else,” Yuuri says before claiming his lips one more time, with the same softness as always, but also with renewed sovereignty over him as he secures him in his arms and flips them around.

Victor renounces any and all control at once. This is Yuuri’s dance to lead.

 

* * *

**5:57am**

There’s still no daylight when Yuuri wakes up. He blinks a few times and looks around, but the whole world seems wrapped in thin, translucent cling film.

He fumbles for his glasses, finding them next to him on the grass, right between him and Victor, who sleeps with one arm under his head and the tease of a smile on his lips. One that Yuuri probably has as well, as he remembers last night.  
  
He should be feeling self-conscious, but all he can think about is a scenario where he gets to wake up next to Victor more often. Well. To sleep with him, wake up next to him, and spend the rest of the day with him. But he's got a train to catch that can no longer be postponed.  
  
Yuuri is still gazing at him — at the way his lashes fan against his cheeks like silver feathers, at his hair spilling platinum over the grass, and at how the severe curve of his nose contrasts sharply with the softness sleep lends his features — when Victor opens his eyes, and their blue peeks out from behind ridiculously long eyelashes.  
  
The smile he gives on seeing Yuuri is a heartbreaker. "Hey you. Morning."  
  
_What if we just stay here forever?_  
  
He smiles back. "Morning."

 

* * *

**6:14am**

Most of Paris is still asleep, wrapped up in the last hours before sunrise. Some bakeries are already open, though, and a few of people make their way to work. When Yuuri looks up, bleary clouds permeate a still dark blue sky and announce a cold day ahead. If he could, he too would stay in bed and not wake up from any of this.

Their walk towards the metro station is unhurried and made of sporadic, quiet remarks on passing topics. Victor's hand is the only point of warmth in the morning, and Yuuri should be able to make it infinite while it lasts — but the sound of time slipping through their shared hourglass hungers, bites, demands.

“What’s the first thing you’re gonna do when you're home?” he asks, sorely in need of a distraction.

“Pick up Makka. She’s staying with Yakov and Lilia.” He smiles a bit. “Can’t wait to see her. What about you?”

“Shower,” he says with no hesitation, and that gets a laugh from Victor. “Call my parents, tell them I’ve arrived… have lunch, I think? And go present myself at the company.”

Victor squeezes his hand. “A man with a thousand plans.” After a second or two, he suddenly adds with a groan, “It sucks.”

“What?”

“To go back to… this,” he gestures towards the streets around them. “Back to real time, where we have Things To Do and Places To Be.”

Back to where yesterday is nothing but a brief stop soon reduced to memory; to where he doesn’t have any more of Victor’s time.

“Yeah, it sucks,” he agrees in a low voice.

As they cross a street, Victor murmurs, “But all the clocks in the city began to whirr and chime: ‘O let not Time deceive you, you cannot conquer Time.”

Yuuri stares at him in stunned silence, and Victor shakes his head with a grin. “W. H. Auden. I like his stuff, and this is a good poem of his, about how… time always wins, basically.”

“That sounds ominous.”

Victor snorts. “A bit, yeah. But it's weirdly appropriate,” he says, and after glancing at Yuuri, he looks away again. “I wish it weren't.”

Many different answers cross Yuuri's mind. _Then don't leave_ is the inevitable first, and _Do you really? Because I do too,_ and _We should see each other again_ are close seconds. He settles for the more realistic _You say that now, but you'll feel differently in a week or two,_ and ends up giving nothing but a hum in answer.

Among the bare trees and the lone streets, a post with a **METRO** sign soon comes into view, along with stairs leading down the Château de Vincennes station. They stare at it for a minute, neither saying a single word. It’s a mere 30-minute metro ride from here to Gare du Nord, where Yuuri will purchase his ticket to Brussels, board the train, and that’ll be it.

A couple of people walk by, murmuring _excusez-mois_ that range from neutral to vaguely annoyed, as the two of them stand in the middle of the passage. Life in Paris has started, and the hands of the clock move in the only direction they know how.

Yuuri takes a deep breath and look at Victor. “Shall we?”

Victor nods, and they go in.

 

* * *

**6:59am**

The train to Brussels is sleek and shiny red, a far cry from what Yuuri had envisioned. He hates the sight of it. With Victor by his side, carrying his bag for him with one hand and holding Yuuri’s with the other, they stop by one of the cars. Taking a peek inside through a window, Yuuri gets a glimpse of people stowing away their luggage in the overhead compartments or looking for their own seats.

Setting the bag on the floor, Victor looks at him. “So here you are.”

“Yeah. And… you know how to get to Gare de l’Est, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, no problem. Easy enough,” he says, and his smile comes out a bit crooked, a bit sad, or so Yuuri likes to think. “Got your ticket? Your passport?”

Yuuri inspects the inner pocket of his windbreaker for the hundredth time, for safe measure. “Yup. All here.”

Victor opens his mouth, and closes it again. Runs a hand through his hair, ruffling it even more after the night spent on the grass — and even then, disheveled as he is, he still looks like everything Yuuri could possibly want out of a morning. Or every morning for the rest of his life. He takes Yuuri’s hands. “So this is it,” he says.

Yuuri takes a deep breath, and then another. And another. He needs more air than he’s getting, like he’s just run through the whole of _Sleeping Beauty_ _,_ dancing every single part on his own. His heart beats so small he’s not even sure it’s still there. It’s probably between Victor’s teeth.

“Yeah. I, um… yeah.”

With a deep breath of his own, Victor swallows. “Yuuri, I really… I’m…” he shakes his head, giving up on that thought.

Yuuri squeezes his hand. “I know. Me too,” he replies, allowing himself to answer his own hopes. For all Yuuri knows, he’s going to be forgotten in the blink of an eye, but right now Victor looks like he’d rather stay here, holding hands all day in the middle of a train platform, than say goodbye.

Victor’s hands roam up his arms and stop on his shoulders, pressing them gently before moving on to his neck and raking through his hair, as if trying to ascertain Yuuri is still real — as if making a mental map of him one last time, his eyes trying to take all of him in at once.

“Don’t forget this,” he says at last, and gives him a broken attempt at a heart smile. “I’d say ‘don’t leave’, but.”

_“You’re the best day I ever had. That’s for me, and no one else.”_

“I wanna see you again,” Yuuri blurts out. He has all of five minutes before the train leaves, but twenty-four hours were not enough, could never be enough. He owes it to the last twenty-four hours to _try._

Victor blinks at him. Blinks again. Blinks for so long that there’s already a “never mind” balanced at the tip of Yuuri’s tongue, and he’s ready to let it fall — but Victor grabs him by the hair and crashes their lips together, in a kiss that wrecks Yuuri’s sanity and any take-backs.

Before he can even properly enjoy it, however, Victor breaks it to spread smaller kisses along his jaw and temple, breathing out a small laugh. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Yuuri’s eyes fly wide. “Really? I thought… I thought you wouldn’t want to see me again!”

“What?” Victor frowns, confused. “Why would you— it doesn’t matter, listen: what do you want to do? I—” He pats his own pockets and says something in Russian. “My battery’s dead, how are we—”

“Meet me here,” Yuuri says, desperate. The train is going to leave at any moment, they need to arrange this _now—_ “Meet me here in a month.”

“Here… at the station?” At Yuuri’s frantic nodding, Victor nods along, “Yes. Yes, I’ll meet you here! Next month, on the 6th?”

“Yeah, February 6th! At uhhh… at 7 o’clock!”

“7am or 7pm?” Victor asks, the words coming out almost jumbled up in the hurry.

“Seven pm!” Yuuri says after a quick moment to think — he hates sleeping during airplane trips; it won’t be different with a train. He needs to not be jet-lagged when he gets here. “7pm, on the 6th.”

Victor looks around. “On… platform 6?”

“Well, maybe not on the platform exactly, but um… there!” He points at a bench by the illuminated train schedule, beyond the platform. “On that bench, on the 6th, at 7pm!”

“Yes,” Victor says, kissing him once, twice and another time, and Yuuri hurries to answer each kiss, “yes, I’ll be here!”

“I need— I need to get on the train,” Yuuri says between kisses. When Victor breaks apart with a groan, he smiles, his eyes stinging from the tears that will come once he’s alone. “ _Mata ne,_ Victor.”

With a sigh, Victor runs his thumb over Yuuri’s bottom lip, his eyes shining in the artificial light of the station. “ _Do svidaniya_ , Yuuri.”

Yuuri flushes. The things he’d do with that thumb if given only one hour more. “ _À bientôt_ , Victor.”

Victor cups his face and, after a lingering kiss to his forehead, he looks into his eyes and whispers, “ _À très bientôt,_ my Yuuri.”

 _My Yuuri_ is more than he can bear. He breaks all contact and get on the train before the tears spill in front of Victor. In the nick of time: he’s just found his seat when the doors close. He shoves his bag in the overhead compartment sparing no thought to this own things inside, and collapses on the seat. He closes his eyes and breathes; breathe in, hold it, breathe out.

When the train begins to move, he opens his eyes again and looks out the window: Victor is walking along with the train, eyes glued on him like a compass pointed towards its only true north.

Yuuri smiles at him, waving as he blinks back the incoming tears. Victor waves back, but fails to return the smile; his face reminds Yuuri of Vicchan, looking up at him with beady eyes on the day he left Hasetsu. The train picks up speed, and though Victor continues walking, he falls fast behind, and soon all Yuuri can really see of him is the silver hair and the green scarf — until they, too, get lost in the distance.

He sits back and screws his eyes shut, in a futile attempt to stop the free fall of tears. It takes a while, but when he finally drifts into sleep, it’s at the rhythm of the moving train and the dreams of more sand into the hourglass.

They have more time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again: more research went into this, so forgive me for any dumb mistake, please!
> 
> My collab partner, rikichie, is amazing and the best, please [go shower her with love on Twitter for the beautiful art she made for this chapter](https://twitter.com/rikicohn/status/1116598770291003392)! ♥
> 
> Thank you to my betas [Rae](http://extranikiforov.tumblr.com/), [Dommi](sinkingorswimming.tumblr.com) and [lily winterwood](http://omgkatsudonplease.tumblr.com/)! *hugs you forever*
> 
> Everyone (except porn bots) is always welcome to talk to me on [Tumblr](http://thehobbem.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/thehobbem)!


	3. you were for me that night (everything I always dreamt of in life)

**January 15th, 3pm**

Victor twirls a pencil in his hand, not bothering to look up. “If you say so, sure.”

If Yakov notices his complete disinterest, he doesn’t say so. Maybe he’s just happy that Victor didn’t put up a fight this time. Nevertheless, he still goes on, as if Victor somehow needed more convincing.

“It’s going to be great for sales. People will flock to the bookstore to see you, get an autographed copy, a picture—”

The pencil stops twirling. “No pictures.”

Yakov sighs. “You know how hard it is to make sure people don’t sneak in their cell phones?”

“No pictures,” Victor repeats with a pleasant smile. There’s no particular emphasis or vehemence in his words, only the affable, slightly aloof immovability of a boulder. They’ve had this conversation many times throughout the years, Yakov knows better than to think he can win this particular battle.

“Fine,” Yakov grumbles, scribbling down a few notes on his notepad. _He should really start getting used to tablets,_ Victor thinks. Although considering the speed (or rather, lack thereof) with which Yakov types messages on the phone, and how he deletes letter by letter instead of selecting everything, maybe a tablet would be too time-consuming after all.

“No pictures, then. But it’ll be two days of signing!” he says, verging on threatening. Victor shrugs and that’s answer enough for Yakov. It’s a fair trade: no pictures in exchange for the extremely rare book signing. The last time Victor had one was what, five years ago? For _Stay With Me._ He still likes that one — or more accurately, used to. Now it hits all the wrong notes.

“I’ll contact Fée des Lilas, then, and see which dates work best. Do you have any suggestions?” Yakov asks.

Victor finally looks up. Fée des Lilas? That bookstore… “In Paris?” he says out loud.

“Yes, of course.”

Victor rolls his eyes. “There’s no ‘of course’ about this, why does it have to be in Paris?!”

Yakov looks at him in dismay for a second. “Vitya,” he says at last, “your book is called _Life & Love in Paris_. It takes place entirely in Paris.”

“The signing could be here in Saint Petersburg, or literally anywhere else.”

Yakov sighs heavily, and rubs his face. When he speaks, his voice is low, always a sign Victor’s is too close to the edge.

“Victor Yakovlevich: we both agreed years ago that I wouldn’t interfere in your writing, and you wouldn’t interfere in my marketing. This is you interfering. Why are you interfering?”

“Well, I think—”

“No interfering! You go to Paris every month to do God knows what, and now Paris is a problem? You were there last week! No, the signing will be at Fée des Lilas and that’s the end of it. Now: _do_ you have any suggestions for dates or not?”

He does. There’s only one date he could suggest when it comes to Paris, and he hates it. Hates the date, hates every corner of that city and the train station he visits every month on the same day, at the same hour. He’s sick of planes and the Moscow-Paris express with its 40-hour train ride. And yet, not a month goes by when he isn’t there, sitting at an uncomfortable bench at Gare du Nord at 7pm on the 6th, and the only thing he hates more than that is the impulse to keep doing it. The hope that propels him forward.

But he still does it. Every month.

“Yeah, I have a suggestion.”

 

* * *

 

**February 5th, 2:50pm**

_“La Vie et l’Amour à Paris!”_

_Une séance de dédicace avec l'auteur V. Y. Nikiforov!_

_Les 5 et 6 février_

The poster on the show window is impossible to miss. According to Yakov, the manager was excited to host the event and agreed with every single term, including the “no pictures” condition.

Now that Victor's here, he has to admit Fée des Lilas, at the heart of Champs-Élysées, is a great choice of venue. The marble floors dating back to the late 1800’s are impeccable, as well as the carefully maintained wooden beams and furniture. It would be hard to venture a guess as to which color the walls are, as all of them are covered by books, top to bottom. Exactly what a bookstore should be, in Victor’s opinion.

He takes his seat, letting Yakov and the event manager deal with the finer details of the evening, such as where the line should begin and at what time the waiters would make the rounds with drinks and hors d'oeuvres. Whatever they decide will be fine. Victor’s job is to sit, smile, be pleasant, and sign until he gets carpal tunnel syndrome. Lather, rinse, repeat the whole night. And tomorrow, after his time here is up…

Victor leans back and closes his eyes. Should he even go? Again? Every month he gets the exact same result out of it: nothing.

Last February Victor arrived at the station at 7pm as promised, and waited until midnight. Looking, searching, hoping. He thought he’d made a mistake: maybe he’d remembered the time wrong, or the day; maybe Yuuri said 7am instead of pm, it was all so fast! He went back at 7am the next day and waited, Yuuri would try to meet him again, right? Victor had breakfast at the station — and lunch, and dinner, only admitting defeat late into the night. Yuuri had probably come on the morning of the 6th, waited, and left before Victor arrived in the evening. He might even have waited for Victor for _hours_.

When March came, he decided to try again. Yuuri might be thinking exactly the same thing, could be going there again in the morning, hoping Victor would do the same. And it’s such a short trip from Brussels! Victor got to the station at exactly 7am and took his place on the bench. When it was 8am he looked around the L’Argent Du Nord Café, where they'd first met, as well as platform 6. Nothing. He left for lunch and came back at 6pm — maybe they did arrange to meet in the evening, after all. Memory is a tricky thing. He gave up when he looked at his cell phone and the bright display showed 00:03.

He repeated himself in April and May. In June, what was once unthinkable finally became a possibility: maybe Yuuri forgot. Maybe he had not spent his entire January thinking of the day they’d see each other again, like Victor had. He still came back in July, certain that the sixth time was the charm.

The optimism was maintained in August, despite all odds. This time, he was sure Yuuri had said 7pm, so Victor forced himself to only go in the evening. But in September, as he watched couples and families reunite at the station, he came to a conclusion: Yuuri had not forgotten him. He had consciously decided not to see him again. He might have enjoyed their twenty-four hours together, but had no intention of going back for more.

In October, Victor’s watching of the trains’ arrivals and departures brought him the certainty that Yuuri had long met someone else and given up on Victor, who lived countries away; November, and he feared that maybe Yuuri had gotten involved in some kind of accident and gone into a coma, or worse. He spent the rest of the night multitasking between googling traffic accidents in Belgium and looking around the station to make sure he didn’t miss any trains from Brussels. Just in case.

He took a box of chocolate with him in December: Yuuri’s birthday was at the end of November, if he recalled correctly, it wouldn’t hurt to have something for him, just in case Yuuri showed up after all. Victor ate it on his own on the Paris-Moscow express on the way home.

January saw him arrive in Paris on the 5th, the anniversary of his meeting Yuuri. He wore the same outfit of that day — the same dark blue coat and green scarf, and the same dark pants, just in case. He was there again on the 6th, eating a bagful of chocolate eclairs.

He looks at the neat pyramid of books a couple of feet away from him, with their spines turned in the same direction and proudly exhibiting their title, _Life & Love in Paris._  

_“I don't wanna be a story.”_

He still isn't, not in the sense he meant. But with every month gone by he became so much more than that. His absence turned into demons made of frustrated expectations and stinging memories, and they needed to be exorcised.

Only a way to vent at first, Victor found himself crafting, polishing, examining every word with a critical eye, the detached story-teller coming to his rescue. When it was done he sent it to his editor, then to Yakov; a price tag was slapped on it and that was it. Seeing his raw wounds exposed in detail under the guise of fiction, there for anyone to read, opens a hole where his hopes once were; they're gone, awash in the current of words he finally found and the gruesome, cold process of editing.

He fishes around his pocket, and comes out with the one thing he never fails to take to Paris with him: the snowflake ornament he got from Yuuri that night. He plays with it a little, letting it catch the light this and that way. What did Yuuri do with his? Did he hang it somewhere? Stashed it in a box, waiting for Christmas? Let it break?

As the first V. Y. Nikiforov fans line up, trying not to stare and whispering to each other, Victor puts it back in his pocket and plasters his author smile on. It's time to do his job.

And it might be high time he left the past behind.

 

* * *

 

**February 5th, 8:11pm**

Yuuri throws himself in bed with a _pouf:_ it's over, at long, long last. And to think he used to find national tours exhausting… he wasn't even close to the real meaning of exhausting, not until he'd been on tour in over 20 countries.

He'd do it all over again, though. Being able to perform in front of so many different audiences — from all over Europe to Latin America and all around Asia — was both terrifying and thrilling at the same time; but now he needs some rest from all of it, which is what the next two weeks are for. Two entirely free weeks before he has to set foot into the National Belgian Theater again; what's he going to do with so much time?

He stares at the ceiling. The old apartment he's managed to secure here in Brussels has some elegant, if slightly old-fashioned, carved patterns. Having spent his childhood helping his parents run the family onsen, his mind travels to the sheer impracticality of such a ceiling: what a headache to clean. Not that he's spent too long around to do it yet, but the principle of the thing remains.

Two weeks is enough to go around Europe a little, see the actual places beyond the stages and hotels. He could go to the Netherlands, for instance, Germany, Italy… not France, though. At least not Paris. He probably won't be able to even think about Paris without that bitter sting for years to come, and that's a trap of his own making.

He should've left Vicchan in Hasetsu. It was his own selfishness that subjected him to such a long trip and abrupt change of environment. Vicchan could've lived a long, healthy life by the seaside, surrounded by the warmth of the onsen and the love of his family. But no, Yuuri had to bring him over, didn't he?

All his careful plans, thrown away on the chance of a single choice in a catastrophic domino effect. Leaving Vicchan at a dog hotel and spending his last free day with Victor in Paris before the tour, it all made perfect sense. All the pieces fit. All gone to waste.

The move to Brussels had been less than kind on Vicchan, already advanced in years, and when February 6th came around he couldn't eat or move from his pillow. At 7pm of the same day, instead of being in Victor's arms, Yuuri was in a cold waiting room at the vet, waiting for Vicchan to get out of surgery.

He never did.

At 11pm, Yuuri was in his living room drowning in tears, hamburger wraps, a bucket of fried chicken and a pile of French fries, regretting every bite that would surely slow him down the next day at the start of the season. But grieving doesn't care for calories or jetés, and Yuuri spent the night mourning a life with Vicchan and a future with Victor, both now completely out of reach.

At 7am the following morning, he and the rest of the company were boarding a plane to London, to start their year-long international tour.

His eyes move from the ceiling to the snowflake Victor bought for him. Yuuri hung it near the window, where it catches sunlight in the morning and distributes rainbows over the otherwise desolate floor. He’s never touched it since then, just like he’s tried not to touch the memories of that night, for fear they’d stretch an already gaping wound.

What possessed him that day in Paris, anyway? Why not ask _What's your Instagram account_ instead of _Meet me here next month?_ Who does that?! Now he doesn't have a last name or a reference to locate Victor, only a promise he was the first to break. He can still remember performing in Paris at the end of September, looking around the audience more often than he looked at his dance partners, in a vain, insane hope that maybe Victor would be there, because… well, because stranger things have happened before. So he searched wildly for one familiar face among the audience. Just in case.

Every day he checks his email and social media, because what if Victor found him? What if Victor scoured every single social media account under ‘Yuuri’ until he found him? The conclusion he comes to, after finding no direct messages or following requests, is always the same: Victor would have to search for a needle in a haystack of Yuuri, Yuri, Iury, Yury, Iurii, Youri, Yuriy, and— and he wouldn’t. No one would. He himself has long given up, after realizing he’d have to look among every Victor, Viktor, Vikter, Wiktor, Víctor, and that would be assuming he doesn’t use his name in cyrillic. With no last name, it’s an impossible search. Yuuri still checks every day, though, just in case.

Two weeks, and he’s on the brink of hating every single day of it. It’s easier when he’s dancing, easy to forget his selfishness killed Vicchan, or that he threw away the only chance he’d ever have to see Victor again. Easy to forget himself.

With a sigh, he sits up and heads for the bathroom. Time to take a shower, get the airplane smell off of him, and head out for dinner and the nearest bookstore. If he’s going to feel sorry for himself, he’d better do it under another small mountain of junk food and in the company of V. Y. Nikiforov’s new book, which he still hasn’t gotten around to buying.

He can hear Phichit rolling his eyes all the way from Detroit. But really, what could be better for wallowing in self-pity than reading about beautiful fictional people finding love in the unlikeliest places?

 

* * *

 

**February 6th, 2:38pm**

The sunlight that showers his bedroom in the morning, shining at full blast when Yuuri opened the book, has long crossed to the other side of the sky by the time he puts the book down and rushes to grab his laptop.

As soon as he types “all the clocks in the city began”, Google auto-completes it with “to whirr and chime”, and the first result Yuuri gets on his search is **As I Walked Out One Evening by W. H. Auden - Poems | poets.org**.

_“W. H. Auden. I like his stuff.”_

Yuuri clicks on the link, devouring every inch of his nails as he compares the lines of the poem to the names of the chapters of _Life & Love in Paris: _ each chapter is a direct line from the poem Victor quoted that morning a year ago.

“But all the clocks in the city began to whirr and chime” is chapter twelve, the one where the characters wake up in Bois de Vincennes, after having spent a day and night together. After meeting at Gare du Nord in the morning, having lunch by the Seine and kissing in the Luxembourg Gardens at sunset; after ice skating in the evening and sleeping together in the park. It took Yuuri a couple of hours to get to chapter twelve — but less than one to sit up on his bed and stare wide-eyed at the pages narrating in incredible detail the day he’s never told anyone about. By the time he got to chapter thirteen (“O let not Time deceive you, you cannot conquer Time”), in which the characters say goodbye at the station and promise to meet again in a month, Yuuri has long forgone the idea of lunch, or food as a whole.

None of this is a coincidence.

The names are different, professions and nationalities have been changed, and the date and hour are others; there is no mention of the snowflakes exchanged, but everything else is them. Victor and Yuuri, and their one day together in Paris.

Victor Y. Nikiforov. He googles it with his heart beating so loud he worries it’s going to either escape through his mouth, but the search doesn’t yield anything relevant. He knew it wouldn’t. Any Nikiforov fan knows there are no traces of him on the internet, save for an official Twitter account obviously managed by a PR team, with nothing beyond announcements and tour dates. There are also no pictures to be found; it’s like the Victor he met in Paris doesn’t exist.

Except Yuuri has just purchased proof that he does. For only €21, too.

What if he sends a DM to his Twitter account, would it even reach him? Or maybe an email to the publishing company? Could he find information about Victor’s agent?

He looks at the tweets on the V. Y. Nikiforov Twitter account without reading any of them. A new edition of the _On Love_ books (that black and red edition of _Eros_ looks incredible, he should rebuy it), an old collection of short-stories being re-released after a decade, a Brazilian Portuguese translation of _Stay With Me,_ a book signing in Paris, the cover of the Hungarian version of _Living Legend,_ a—

He scrolls back up.

A book signing in Paris. On February 5 and 6, 2019, at the Fée des Lilas bookstore, at 3pm. Yuuri looks at the time at the bottom of the screen: 3:01.

He scrambles off his chair, almost knocking it down in his hurry to find a pair of jeans and shoes, any shoes will do, and  _God_ he needs to brush his teeth, he can’t cross into another country with morning breath! And where’s his wallet?! His blue coat?!

It’s 3:10 when Yuuri slams the door of his apartment and bolts down the hall. At 3:11 he comes back, hurriedly puts on some deodorant in lieu of a shower, grabs the passport buried in the bag he still hasn’t unpacked, and leaves again.

He has a train to catch.

 

* * *

 

**February 6th, 6:32pm**

More often than not, marble floors are an indicative of class. The minute one steps into a building with marble floors one knows the kind of people bound to be found there: men who walk silently, women whose approach is announced by the subtle click of their heels, people who speak in hushed tones and wear flawlessly cut clothes. And above all else, one knows you’re not supposed to run inside.

Which is exactly why Yuuri stops at the delicate glass doors, his sneakers abruptly squeaking against the marble and earning a few turned heads in his direction. Between the expensive cherry-red marble, the polished wood, and the walls covered in books, he couldn’t not stop. But more than anything, it’s the unexpected, relative emptiness of the store that brings his mad dash to a halt.

Shouldn’t this be crawling with people? Surely a book signing with one of the most reclusive authors of the last decade would attract a crowd!

Yuuri slowly advances, looking around and finding nothing but people perusing the shelves or leafing through a book that sparks their interest — the same regular activity inside any bookstore. When he gets to the other end, he spots an empty table and a pile of copies of _Life & Love in Paris. _ Where’s the author?!

He approaches a girl wearing the store’s apron and putting some books back on a shelf. “Excuse me, um… the book signing with Nikiforov, wasn’t it today?”

“Oh I’m sorry! It ended some thirty minutes ago,” the girl says, her face filling with sympathy. “Were you hoping to get an autograph from Nikiforov?”

His heart sinks. “Yeah… yeah, I was. I… came just for that.”

“Sorry,” she repeats with a tiny commiseration smile. “It went on for hours yesterday, but today he said he had to catch a train at seven, so it ended early. If you’d come before…”

“Yeah… well, thank you.”

With a nod and another smile, the girl goes back to her task, and Yuuri looks around: he can’t find one single trace that Victor’s ever been here; Victor Nikiforov truly is a hard man to get hold of. Not that Yuuri, the breaker of their promise, should be the one to say it.

He picks up a copy of Nikiforov’s new book and opens it at a random page, more to have something to do with his hands than out of any real desire to reread his own story.

_“Eleven months of this personal hell, and he still hasn’t abandoned all hope — that small ember that refuses to die, even in the deepest throes of winter. Even as the last train from London arrives, bringing him nothing to keep it alive._

_He’ll be back next month.”_

The words wrap a sharp talon around his heart: could it be true that Victor’s gone back to Gare du Nord on the 6th of every month for a whole year? The concept defies logic itself, as well as Yuuri’s suspension of disbelief: Victor’s a writer, he makes a living out of making up stories. There’s nothing to stop him from creating an alternative denouement to their story.

Except for the painful truth that bleeds out of every scene in the book. Every one of their steps, words and spilled confessions are there on the page, each page providing free, unlimited access to Victor’s thoughts, hidden from Yuuri until now.

Putting the book back on the pile, he strolls aimlessly around the bookstore. To think he missed Victor by thirty minutes. At seven o’clock he’ll catch a train back hom—

Another squeak of shoes on marble. _“He said he had to catch his train at seven”._ At 7pm, in Paris, on the 6th.

Does he really have a train to catch?

Ignoring the solemnity of the red marble, Yuuri rushes out of the store, running towards the nearest metro station. He has very little time: either Victor is at Gare de l’Est, about to board the Paris-Moscow Express, or… or he’s at Gare du Nord. Just in case.

Logic says that no one, specially not someone like Victor, would bother going back to Gare du Nord just to see Yuuri; it’s nothing short of a miracle that Victor agreed to meet him again in the first place. Why would he keep trying? And for the thirteenth time, no less?!

On the other hand, he’s read the book. How much of its ending is true is up for debate, but the debate has to be settled _now_ , because he only has time to reach one train station at 7pm.

He sprints down the stairs of the metro station.

 

* * *

 

**February 6th, 7:02pm**

The coffee cup warms Victor’s hands like no pair of gloves would in this weather. It’s still far from being the best coffee he’s ever had — or anything that has earned the name ‘coffee’, really — but it doesn’t matter at this point. It’s what he deserves for being so hopelessly stupid, and hopeful beyond reason.

He glances at the time; one more hour until he punishes himself some more with a sandwich from L’Argent, to go with their watered down coffee, and another hour from then for him to give up and leave. He goes through the motions on auto-pilot by now. And when his vigil is over, he’ll head straight for the airport. The concept of ‘home’ might not be one that clamors for his return, but the idea of Paris is one that sets his nerves on edge, and he can’t wait to get rid of it. Go into his shower and get rid of any parisian smell that lingers on his skin, watch the memories go down the drain like all others.

Victor takes a small unwilling sip of his “coffee” and looks around: people come and go as always. They get off trains or board them, drag luggage around, examine train schedules and tighten their scarves around their necks in preparation for the cold outside. The flurry of activity urges everyone on — except Victor. He’s stuck, doomed to wait in one of the most hectic liminal spaces in the world for a whole year.

_A whole year._

His eyes go to the cup in his hands. Last year he sat at one of the tables in L’Argent Du Nord Café and drank their horrible coffee for the first time. The cup had been white with details in silver, to match the name; now it’s plain blue. Even the cups at a below-average café have changed, while Victor went nowhere and learned no lessons.

 _Two more hours and I’ll leave,_ is what he thinks every month. Arrive a little before seven and leave a little after nine, just in case. But who says he has to wait for two hours? What difference does it make if Yuuri doesn’t show up at seven, or eight, or nine?

He takes another sip, a long, focused one. One that will sit so badly on his tongue it’ll spur him on, and he’ll have no choice but to leave. He winces as it goes down — _God_ this is such bad coffee it's enough to make him go atheist — but he pushes forward. If he drinks it all, with no pausing and no second-guessing, he’ll have to get up and buy some water. And once he’s up, he’ll march right through those doors and not look back.

Victor’s half-way through the task when he’s jolted out of it by someone calling his name — and he’s sent into a coughing fit as the coffee goes down the wrong way.

When he recovers and looks up, Yuuri is standing a couple of steps away, staring at him like one would at a newly resurrected Lazarus. He's probably repaying Yuuri in the same coin.

Chest heaving and face flushed — did he run here?! — Yuuri comes closer and gets a book out of his coat pocket.

“You're V. Y. Nikiforov,” he says, voice coming out a little breathless as he waves the book in his hand: it’s a copy of _Life & Love in Paris. _

Victor stares at the book, speechless; he’s entertained a thousand and one different scenarios since the last time they saw each other, all of them dismissed as too farfetched in the end. “Yuuri reading his book” was simply tossed in the trash along with the others, but here it is, back from the depths of his imagination. With no other reaction at his command, he nods.

Yuuri’s eyes grow impossibly large. “You… you should’ve told me. I could’ve… I would—”

“Ask for an autograph?” Victor says, the scoff and the bitterness coming out unintended, but no less biting for it. To his horror, Yuuri’s eyes well up, and the tears spill freely, abundant and in every other direction.

Victor sits up straight: he shouldn’t have said that.

He shouldn’t have said that. It was stupid and cruel and untrue, and he shouldn't have said it, and now Yuuri's crying, what can he do to fix it?! Victor stands up and takes a step towards him — and another step back when Yuuri covers his mouth to hide the rictus contorting his face, which only gives free reins to his tears. Should he hold him? Say something? Wipe his tears? They look like a waterfall, maybe they cannot be wiped or contained at all.

“I— I’m sorry, Yuuri. I didn’t mean… let’s just—” he stops as Yuuri shakes his head, and babbles something that comes out muffled, going beyond Victor’s comprehension skills. “Sorry, what’s that?”

Removing his hand from his mouth with a deep breath, Yuuri murmurs, “Vicchan died. On the 6th.”

Who’s Vic— _no_.

It only takes one light tug from Victor for Yuuri to end up in his arms, his face buried in Victor’s shoulder. He moves away for one moment to remove his glasses, and goes back to the shoulder offered, tears soaking through Victor’s brand new cashmere sweater. Victor couldn’t care less. He’d let Yuuri ruin a dozen more if he wanted to.

When Victor plucks up the courage to stroke his hair, Yuuri’s hands around his waist tighten their grip; kissing the top of his head, Victor murmurs “Shh, that’s okay, darling. I’ve got you.” That only seems to prompt more tears, but Yuuri most likely needs them right now. With a little maneuvering, Victor gets them both sitting on the fatidic bench, and waits for the river to run its course.

Two or three minutes have gone by when Yuuri finally raises his head and whispers a tiny “I’m sorry.”

Victor gently wipes the track of his tears off Yuuri’s face; his hand lingers when he’s done, caressing Yuuri’s cheek. That earns him the hint of a smile — crooked, sad, and almost invisible to the naked eye, but there nonetheless.

“So you couldn’t come,” Victor says, watching those brown eyes from up close. An inconvenient, hopeless part of him notices that even red-rimmed and puffy from crying, they’re still more beautiful than anything else he’s seen this entire past year.

Yuuri nods. “He had surgery that evening, and it took hours, and I— I had to stay. I’m sorry, I couldn’t leave him, but… I felt horrible.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to—”

“No no no, you don’t understand,” Yuuri interrupts him, and he looks down at his hands clasping each other until his knuckles are white. “I was sitting there in the waiting room thinking of everything that could happen, thinking the vet would come out and say ‘hey, good news, everything went fine and he’s resting’, you know? But I also kept thinking that… that I wasn’t here. That you’d be here waiting for me and I wouldn’t show up — and then I thought ‘well, maybe he won’t show up anyway’, but maybe you would? And I… I would never know. And I would never see you again, and that maybe I wouldn’t see Vicchan again either, and it was just— _ugh,”_ the rambling comes to an abrupt end when he buries his face in his hands.

Finding the right words has never been this hard; maybe it’s the Yuuri Effect on him. He’s still trying to find them when Yuuri raises his head again, his eyes widening in horror:

“Oh my God, you must hate me.”

“What?! No, of course I d—”

“You hate me,” Yuuri continues as though Victor hadn’t said a word. “You flew all the way over here — or maybe you came by train, which, fuck, that’s an even longer trip — and came here and waited for me and I never showed up, of course you hate me.”

“Yuuri, stop,” Victor says, a small snort escaping through his nose, which only makes Yuuri’s face fall even more, drowning in the horror of his own invention. Victor rushes to reassure him, “I don’t hate you, of course not! I was confused, yes, and… well, disappointed,” Yuuri groans and buries his face in his hands again, but Victor moves on, “and I thought of many possibilities, but I never hated you. I… don’t think I could ever hate you,” he finishes, letting that annoying, unannounced honesty color his words again. He hasn’t let it see the light of day for a year, Yuuri seems to be the only one who can extricate it from him.

Yuuri peeks from behind his fingers. “Really?”

Victor chuckles, fumbling around his pocket. “Yes, really,” he replies, delicately pulling one of Yuuri's hands away from his face and placing there the snowflake he brought with him. For a horrible moment, Yuuri’s eyes glisten again — until his lips curve into a fragile smile. He turns the snowflake this and that way, before giving it back to Victor without comment.

“And you…” he continues, taking Victor’s hand in both of his. “You came,” he says softly.

“I did prom—”

“Every month.”

Their eyes meet again. Not for the first time, Victor wonders why it’s so hard to take his eyes off Yuuri. Now would be a great time. But maybe he’s not strong enough.

Maybe he’s just not meant to.

He shrugs weakly. “Yeah.”

For what it’s worth, Yuuri’s eyes don’t shy away from his either. Maybe that’s just what they’re supposed to do.

“I went on tour,” he explains. “Um, an international tour. On the 7th. It was… one country after the other, I just came back.”

Oh. _Ohhhh._ So…

“...so you couldn’t have come even if you wanted to.”

Yuuri gives him a sad smile. “I wanted to.”

Victor smiles back, or he thinks he does. It doesn’t quite feel like a smile, but more like a warm-up to it. He’ll get there. With Yuuri here, he’ll definitely get there.

They fall into silence, Victor’s hands still in Yuuri’s as they watch the noisy activity of Gare du Nord, with all of its coming and going.

With a sigh, Yuuri turns to him again. “So… now what?”

“Now…” Victor takes a deep breath, putting aside a couple of improper thoughts, “now we should _really_ exchange phone numbers.”

Yuuri laughs for the first time since he got here, and the sound brightens all of the past twelve months. If Victor had to make a list of everything he missed about Yuuri, that sunny, bubbly laughter would’ve easily made his Top 3 — but he didn’t know just how badly he wanted to hear it again until now. Memories are nothing compared to the real thing.

He should make sure that he always has the real thing around.

“And social media, and e-mail, the whole thing, if you don’t mind,” he adds with a smile. And this time it feels like one.

They take out their phones and exchange all sorts of contact information they can think of, with a side of “Okay, but how do you spell Katsuki?” for Yuuri’s information, and “m.v.n. stands for Makkachin Viktorovna Nikiforova, of course!” for Victor’s Instagram. He’s not sure looking at Makka’s pictures would be the best for Yuuri for the time being, but that’s a conversation for later. When they have it all safely saved on their phones (and Victor’s written it all down on his notebook as well, for safe measure), they finally stand up. Taking Yuuri’s hand, Victor pops the question he’s been waiting to deliver for a year:

“Do you want to get some coffee?”

Yuuri looks in the direction of L’Argent Du Nord Café. “Hmm… there doesn’t seem to be any screaming couples there, though.”

Victor rolls his eyes. “Not _there._ There’s a café across the street,” he says with a wink, “they have some decent food there, what do you say?”

“A much better option. But…” Yuuri hesitates, and oh. Victor’s heart skips a beat after a year of barely showing up: that blush. That gorgeous blush on Yuuri’s face, Victor needs more of it like he’d need water in a desert; they’ll have to go for way more than just coffee now.

As if reading his mind, Yuuri completes, “I, um…” he clears his throat. “I happen to live, like. Two hours from here. If you’re free, of course, if you don’t have anywhere to go, or…” he trails off.

Picking up his small overnight bag from the floor, Victor squeezes his hand. “I have nowhere to be.” _Except for wherever you are._ Even if he did have places to go and things to do, he’d still drop them all — but lucky for him (or rather, for Yakov’s peace of mind), Victor is free of obligations for the next few days. “I’d love to go, if you’ll have me.”

With his blush glowing bright red, Yuuri pulls him along towards the ticket desk, and they both hurry. There’s an entire year to make up for.

For once, Victor is going somewhere.

 

* * *

 

**December 2nd, 9:14am**

Sunlight hits Yuuri’s bedroom in full at this time of day, casting the entire floor in golden light speckled with rainbows from the crystal snowflake by the window. Victor shades his eyes as he goes across the room picking up his things. Packing sucks, and Present Victor never thanks Past Victor for the number of things he invariably decides to bring to Brussels. Every month, and he never learns. He’ll try to talk some sense into Future Victor.

He goes into the bathroom to brush his teeth, and when he comes back the bag he’s just filled is empty. His glance goes from the bag to the bed, where Yuuri still lies with the phone in his hands, scrolling down his Twitter feed.

Funny how Yuuri is in the exact same position he left him in, but the bag isn’t.

Not saying a word, Victor grabs a small pile of t-shirts sitting on the chair — and definitely _not_ where Victor left them — and puts them in the bag again, leaving the room once more. Yuuri doesn’t say anything. Too many interesting things happening on Twitter, it would seem.

When Victor comes back, the pile of t-shirts is back on the chair. He stops by the bed and gives Yuuri a long look he pretends not to see.

Victor clears his throat. _“Solnyshko?”_

Yuuri hums, eyes still glued on the phone. Sometimes his thumb moves and he likes something.

“Any idea how my t-shirts ended up back on that chair?”

His eyes briefly move, landing on the chair for less than one second before going back to the phone screen. “Nope.”

“Really? Because I put them _in_ the bag, and now they’re not there anymore.”

“Maybe the t-shirts don’t want to go back to Saint Petersburg,” he mumbles.

“Yuuuuri…”

A sigh, and Yuuri sits on the bed, finally abandoning his phone. “Do you really have to go?”

If it were up to him, Victor wouldn’t go anywhere else beyond the confines of this bedroom; the way the sheets pool around Yuuri’s waist, exposing just enough of his bare V-line to make Victor’s throat go dry, is a very strong argument pro-staying. The way Yuuri looks at him right now is another.

“Sorry, _solnyshko,_ _”_ he says, leaning down to leave a kiss on his forehead, “you know I’d stay forever if I could.”

He goes back to his packing, and is already folding his second t-shirt when he hears “Stay, then.”

“Darling, I told you,” Victor sighs, his attention still on the folding, “I have to go back for the meeting, and I have to get Makka from Yakov, too, he’s gonna go crazy if I—”

“Stay forever.”

Victor’s hands stop.

When he turns around, he finds Yuuri out of bed walking towards him. Under normal circumstances, Victor would find it difficult to not look at a Yuuri naked from head to toe — but the only thing he can focus on is the sound of “forever”.

Yuuri cups his face. “Leave your stuff here, go to the meeting,” he says, “and come back. We’ll see all the paperwork and vaccines we need to bring Makka here, and… well,” he glances at his single bed, “we’ll buy a bigger bed. And a bigger wardrobe. And a writing desk for the living room, and more shelves because you have way too many books.” He takes a deep breath. “And you’ll stay. You’ll write here, in your own corner of the living room, go to Saint Petersburg for meetings that can’t be skyped, and then come back. And you’ll stay.”

Victor’s heartbeat could probably muffle an entire orchestra. “Really?”

Yuuri nods. “Really.” He scrunches up his nose. “I don’t see Makka nearly often enough, I need her here.”

Victor breathes out a laugh. “Fair enough. I’ll get on that, then.” Now that he’s absorbed some of the initial shock, his hands do what they know best: seek Yuuri, grabbing his waist and pulling him closer. He’s still so, so deliciously naked, while Victor is not wearing any underwear under his pants. He’ll have to give up on packing for the time being.

The smile that lights up Yuuri’s face sends him reeling. He already dies in Yuuri’s arms every night they spend together, but this smile will be his early grave.

“You’re saying yes?”

Victor chuckles. “Yuuri, honestly,” he says, without elaborating any further. He spent an entire year going back and forth between France and Russia, just on the remote possibility that he just might see Yuuri once again, and he still has the nerve to doubt Victor would stay for the rest of his life if asked. It would be infuriating, if it weren’t so viscerally true to Yuuri.

“And what else would you say yes to right now?” Yuuri asks, his hands softly roaming down Victor’s back. Before Victor can give a _very_ honest answer to that, Yuuri kisses his neck — slowly, repeatedly, maddeningly, tracing a line up his neck and along his jaw until he claims his lips. Ten months of this, and Victor’s knees still buckle every single time.

“I’m probably… gonna say yes… to anything you ask,” he mumbles in between every kiss. They walk forward still tangled in each other, until the back of Yuuri’s knees hits the bed and they tumble on it on top of each other.

“Okay but,” Yuuri says, moving away just enough to get coherent words out, “what will you do when I’m away on tour? I’m going in three months.”

Victor kisses him again, and smiles into it. “I’ll wait.”

After all, they have all the time in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I couldn't let them meet each other again that easily, could I? ;) But I could also never let them go through life without each other. I would never wish them such a horrible life. 
> 
> Thank you to [rikichie](https://twitter.com/rikicohn), who was an incredible bang partner! Thank you for your enthusiasm and support, and for the beautiful, beautiful art! (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ
> 
> Thank you to [Rae](http://extranikiforov.tumblr.com/) and [lily winterwood](http://omgkatsudonplease.tumblr.com/) for your beta work and unwavering support! ♥♥♥
> 
> And last but not least, thanks to everyone who read, everyone who kudo'ed and left me a comment! ♥ It's great to have support and screaming and feedback! 
> 
> You guys can always find me on [Tumblr](http://thehobbem.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/thehobbem)!
> 
> You'll also find me updating my other wips. All of them. Finally. |ω･)ﾉ


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